


A Brother's Sacrifice

by ayosb2000



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A Few Brief Instances of Corporal Punishment Because John Winchester Is Not A Progressive Parent, But He's Just A Kid, But he loves his kids, John Winchester Will Never Be Father of the Year, Mountains of Angst, Multi, Occasional Mild Smut Because You Can't Write A Story With Dean Without It, Sam Winchester is a Selfish Bastard, Slow Build, So Many Character Backstories, So Very Slow, So We Forgive Him Too, What Dean Winchester is Willing To Do For Family Scares Him Sometimes, Winchesters Are Bad At Feelings, so we forgive him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:14:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 161,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayosb2000/pseuds/ayosb2000
Summary: Completely AU. John really did want Dean to have a home and for Sam to go to school. At Sonny's Dean saw the possibility of another life, but chose family.  17 year old Sam is chafing under his father's thumb. An exploration of what might have happened if Dean finally stood up to his father and decided that normal and hunting could co-exist if it kept Sam with his family.   A long drawn out exploration of how their lives are changed by one different choice.Summary:  Dean Winchester knows his little brother better than anyone else in the world.  Sam is growing up and wants more out of life than just the hunting life, and he's run from his family before.  Dean's willing to do what it takes to stop it from happening again, but will he succeed?  He doesn't know, but he's sure going to try.Cross post from ff.net
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. May 2000

**Author's Note:**

> Dean Winchester spent his life looking after his little brother. He was more than a big brother. He was a father. And a mother. The family peacekeeper.

There was country music playing on the jukebox, which was no big surprise because Sam had ventured to look at the selections once and knew that an entire catalog of country music artists were the only selections on offer. That was fine with him since he never really cared what was playing in the background while he was reading. He had learned the art of tuning out music and any other distracting noises a long time ago from riding hostage in the back seat of the Impala his entire life, and having Dean the human tornado as a brother.

As long as he had a book in front of him he could lose himself in the story and shut out his surroundings.

That particular talent had gotten him into trouble with his father on more than one occasion because Sam was suppose to _always_ be aware of his immediate environment and, sure, he could be plucked out of whatever literary world he was currently immersed in out of reflex if the situation called for it, but he would rather not be bothered on the whole.

Not that any of that really mattered at the moment.

Firmly parked at his corner table, surrounded on two sides by thick wooden walls and heavily guarded by the eagle eyes of his bar tending brother less than thirty feet in front of him, Sam didn't really need to worry about his safety.

Not because of his own relatively mature age of one day shy of seventeen, or his over six feet of height which was just about to overtake his big brother's stature, and rapidly staging a coup over their father's as well, or his buck seventy five of lean muscle. It wasn't even because of the fact that he was deadly proficient with just about any weapon made, or that he knew how to incapacitate someone a dozen different ways just by using his bare hands.

_No_.

It was because he had a much deadlier and highly overprotective older brother who would cheerfully and creatively slaughter anyone that dared come near Sam in even the tiniest of aggressive manners. Who needed self defense skills when you had Dean Winchester as your personal bodyguard?

They were currently finishing week number three in southern Oklahoma, brought here originally by a hunt for a Spring-heeled Jack that Dad and Dean had disposed of within the first week without even breaking a sweat. The plan had been to leave again soon after, but then their father had been mysteriously contacted by a psychic friend out of the blue, and without explanation John had taken off like a rocket in the middle of the night for Salt Lake City leaving the boys behind.

That was perfectly okay with Sam. His present high school was the eleventh one he had been enrolled in since September. Not as many as some years, and sadly less than others, but the school year was drawing to a close in a few weeks and he didn't relish the idea of pulling up stakes again and getting dropped into another messy cauldron of high school angst, snotty cliques and unfamiliar classrooms before the end of the term.

Their home of the moment was the Hi-View Motel. An old but relatively well maintained strip of rooms off the highway, with an attached bar and grill and even an outdoor pool that had seen better days but was still serviceable for the hot sunny weather of the approaching Oklahoma summer.

The owner, Randy Somers, was a widower who had built the motel and bar in the early sixties with his late wife Daphne at a time when roadside travel was a little fancier than it was these days. A nice older gentleman, lonely since the death of his wife, he kept the place out of nostalgia and not real financial need, so the prices were good and the linens were always clean. The lingering pride of better days kept Randy busy with repairs of aging fixtures and the housekeeping was thorough because Randy was fond of telling anyone that would listen that Daphne was watching over the place and she would come back and haunt him if he let it fall into ruin.

Hearing that, Sam was hoping that she actually wasn't, because he didn't look forward to having to salt and burn the bones of the beloved wife of the nice guy that was renting to them.

Randy had taken a shine to the Winchester brothers almost immediately. Maybe because his own two sons lived far away, too busy with their own lives to pay much attention to their father who refused to relocate closer to them. Not actually _live_ with one of them, mind you, Randy had confided to Sam one day over a pitcher of real lemonade. They wanted him close but in a nursing home, to assuage whatever guilt they may have felt for being absent sons to the father that had always provided well for them.

The Hi-View had been the first of the Somers family investments, including some profitable oil interests that kept them more than comfortable. So there was real money backing up the motel and grill, evident in the quality of food that was served, lovingly prepared by a round middle aged woman who called herself Chef Emily, and the meticulous care that was taken with the entire establishment.

Randy and Dean had bonded over the love of classic cars and Dean, now actually being legal at the age of twenty-one and naturally charismatic, had immediately been offered a job tending the lively bar that still got a lot of traffic from the interstate, even though the motel itself was usually only half full at any given time.

With his generous employee discount Dean fed Sam a good dinner in the grill every night, which was a nice change from their usual fast food take out or warmed up canned goods, and he also got a discount on the weekly room rent so it was better than their average set up.

Dean's base pay as a bartender wasn't exactly a pro ball career, but the tips were crazy good because Sam's big brother had ladies lining up to vie for his attention from the time the bar opened until the last stragglers had been shown the door at closing time. As a plus, Randy, with fond memories of his own youth before finding the love of his life, indulgently looked the other way when Dean or the other bartender JP sneaked the occasional love struck lady into an empty unit for a little fun.

So this is where Sam found himself every evening from the start of Dean's shift at five until the kitchen closed at ten, when he would be summarily booted back to their room before the rougher clientele made their nightly appearance for pool, darts and booze. Dean would tend bar until two, making it back to the room any time between three and five a.m. depending on his extracurricular activities, but always up and ready to drive Sam to school in the morning.

As Sam was sitting with a battered copy of The Silmarillion open in front of him, Cassidy, the twenty-two year old smoking hot blonde waitress, put a platter of grilled chicken, french fries and broccoli in front of him, refilling his lemonade glass from the pitcher she carried in her other hand.

Sam liked Cassidy. A lot, actually.

She was beautiful, friendly and chatty, routinely lavishing Sam with lots of flirty fun attention. Sam enjoyed it but he was smart enough to know that her friendliness towards him stemmed from her not quite so secret desire to be the next girl that Dean took to an empty unit, and not any real interest in an awkward kid brother.

He did feel bad for her for harboring a crush that he knew would not be returned, sorely tempted to tell her that his brother would never mess around with a co-worker that he had to see on a daily basis, but he kept his mouth shut. Dean had to work here and it wasn't Sam's place to cause a problem where they both had it pretty good.

She gave him a pretty smile as she walked away and his young hormonal eyes followed her pert behind sashaying back to the bar where her obvious attraction for his big brother was on display for everyone to see. Dean knew, of course, but he liked her as a friend and Sam acknowledged that his brother was trying very hard to be nice to her without encouraging anything further.

It was still early evening, the tables mostly empty, so Dean left the bar in JP's hands and strolled over to check on Sam, sliding into the vacant seat across from him at the table.

"Everything okay, Sammy?" he asked. "Enough rabbit food for you?"

"It'd be better with a beer," Sam responded hopefully, eyes dancing. "I have ID."

"Oh, I know," Dean snorted and raised an eyebrow, giving him an indulgent glare. "I made it for you. You're still not getting one."

Sam smirked and shrugged, not having really expected a different answer, and took a bite of his chicken. "Worth a shot, right?"

Dean grinned for a second before a frown creased his eyebrows as he pulled out his phone.

"Dad called today," he said hesitantly. "He's following up some lead that Fred gave him out to Cali, so he might not be back for a while."

Logically, Sam knew that this information was supposed to upset him, because tomorrow was his birthday and you were supposed to _want_ your father to be with you on your birthday. Sadly, their father had missed several birthdays and other holidays over the years and a result of that was the uncomfortable truth that his absence wasn't felt as keenly as it once had been by his youngest son.

On one level Sam was even secretly pleased, only because it might mean that they could stay where they were a while longer, hopefully until the end of the school year, but he knew he couldn't say these things to his brother. Dean wanted their father with them as much as possible and he didn't take kindly to Sam suggesting otherwise.

"That's okay," he replied, shrugging again. "As long as he eventually makes it back in one piece."

If Dean was surprised by his reaction he didn't show it, and since Sam wasn't pitching a fit and making pointed remarks about jacked up childhoods and absentee fathers, the older brother was going to take the win where he could get it. Sometimes it was just better to keep John and Sam apart and that thought broke Dean's heart a little.

"I think Cassidy is going to make another play for you," Sam said, changing the subject to something less controversial.

Dean let out of heavy sigh and rolled his eyes. "Yeah. It's getting awkward. She's a nice girl, but..."

"I know," Sam said, pushing his shoulders back and wagging his finger, a perfect impression of their father. "You don't shit where you eat, Son!"

Dean smiled but was quietly a little taken aback. The older Sam grew the more he looked and sounded, and sometimes acted, like their father, which was not always a good thing. Dean had long surmised that their many similarities were a contributing factor in their near constant war with each other. Like two identical magnets forever repelling.

In the few minutes that Dean sat with him Sam had hoovered through almost the entire dinner platter and the older brother recognized the telltale signs of another growth spurt on the way. Sammy was already at eye level with him as it was, so as far as Dean was concerned it was just going to suck out loud when his little brother started to tower over him.

Cassidy, having kept a close eye on the brothers, noticed the empty plate as well, taking advantage of Dean's presence at the table to shoot over and offer Sam dessert, which he declined, and refill his lemonade, which he accepted. She threw Dean her prettiest smile, "accidentally" brushing his hand with hers as she took Sam's plate away. The boys watched her head back to the kitchen, hips swaying in her short skirt, and once again Dean regretted his no co-worker policy.

His break over, Dean threw a five on the table for Cassidy's tip and stood up to leave.

"I have plans for tonight," he informed Sam, wagging his eyebrows and grinning. "So don't wait up."

Sam rolled his eyes, because he expected no less, before Dean's face became the serious big brother face.

"Really, Sammy," he said, a little more firmly. "It's school night, so don't wait up. Hit the rack by midnight, Cinderfella."

"Okay, _Mom_ ," Sam sighed irritably, annoyed by his brother's bossiness. It's not like Sam stayed up all night anyway. Dean didn't need to tell him to go to bed like a good little boy and yet he still felt the need to do so every night.

With the table to himself again he buried himself back into his book, losing himself in a world of fantasy that took the edge off of the harsh reality that his family actually lived in. So engrossed was he that time slipped away completely without his knowledge, and it wasn't until he heard a sharp whistle that his subconscious recognized as his brother's way of getting his attention that he poked his head back up for air.

Dean was behind the bar, a full throng of customers jostling for service. The surrounding tables were packed, the air dense with cigarette smoke and the music livelier than earlier. His brother shot him an annoyed glare, pointing to his watch and then to the door. Surprised, Sam sat up straighter in the hard backed chair and glanced at his own watch that told him that it was a quarter past ten.

Slightly disoriented by the missing hours, he grabbed his book and his phone and headed towards the door. As he passed the bar Dean pointed to his watch again and then mouthed _midnight_ at him and Sam scowled at the unnecessary reminder, flipping off his pushy sibling as he headed out. It never ceased to annoy him that his brother, who had always had his own set of rules growing up, could be such a jerk about telling Sam what to do.

Their room was only a few doors down from the grill so it barely took him a minute to reach it, unlocking the door and then immediately locking it behind him from habit. The same habit had him redoing the salt line that was required when their father was away. It rankled Sam sometimes, to have these things so deeply ingrained in him that he did them without even thinking about it.

Not for the first time he lamented the fact that their lives were so completely abnormal because of their unorthodox upbringing. No wonder he always got labeled as a freak at his ever changing schools.

Scowling, he thew his book on the small kitchenette table next to the textbooks and notes that lay sprawled across the whole surface. He didn't have any more homework to do because, as usual, Dean had made him finish it before heading over to the grill. Sam was routinely irked that his less than studious brother had always mandated that Sam complete his homework directly after school. Specifically because Dad wanted Sam free in the evenings to do research for him. 

Not that Sam wouldn't have done it anyways since he enjoyed his studies, and it beat the crap out of researching for his dad in any case. His irritation was more because Dean never really took any interest in his own education, even though Sam knew that his brother was more than capable of making good grades if he made the slightest of efforts.

Dean was smart, probably smarter than Sam was himself, and he wasn't ashamed to admit that about himself or his big brother. But Dean had embraced the hunting life a long time ago and he had never shown any interest in pursuing anything beyond that, actually getting hostile on the few occasions that Sam had tried to suggest otherwise.

So, yeah. Sam had to study because big brother said so, and when Dad wasn't around he had to obey Dean, but he had never really been sure why his brother took such pains with Sam's schooling when it had been made more than clear on several occasions that Sam was expected to follow in the family business.

On top of the school work both boys had a rigorous schedule of PT and weapons training regardless of where they were. It was with these that Sam regularly gave his brother attitude, grabbing at any excuse to avoid the activities that he despised regardless of the orders their father left them with during his frequent absences.

To be fair, it wasn't often that Dean would rat Sam out on his less than willing participation when Dad returned and demanded the usual report. Sam was actually pretty grateful for the fact that his big brother kept his confidence most of the time, only alerting Dad when it was impossible for him to not find something out by other means.

Shamefully Sam knew that he often took advantage of the fact that his brother, while expected to carry out their father's orders, was not permitted to punish Sam for disobeying them. He routinely gave Dean a ton of grief when his brother was just trying to carry out their father's wishes, and still Dean covered his ass when Dad got home unless Sam had done something that might have endangered himself. Sam and his father fought nearly constantly anyway and any lessening of tension was appreciated by all three members of their small family.

Dad didn't care about excellence in Sam's school work either, concerned only that he did well enough to make sure that he stayed below the radar of overzealous teachers, counselors and CPS. Which is how Dean had managed to drop out and get his GED instead of his diploma.

The almost four weeks the brothers had attended Truman High a few years ago had been uncomfortable and life altering for both Sam and his brother. It was right after their month there that Dean had informed their father that he was leaving high school altogether, tired of the hassle of it all, and Sam was still pissed to this day that Dad had allowed it. Realistically he knew that their father couldn't stop him since Dean was already eighteen and legally old enough to do as he pleased, but Dad could have made more of an effort to make Dean graduate in Sam's opinion.

Their father was relentless on issuing orders about every aspect of their lives and Dean always obeyed them with a _sir, yes, sir_ , so if John had told his eldest to get his ass into the next school Dean would have done so immediately and probably got his diploma. The fact that their father let it go was one of the things that had made Sam the most angry with him out of all of their fights so far, because his brother could have been anything he wanted to be if given a little freedom and encouragement.

Which is probably why he himself wound up giving more than passing thought to Mr. Wyatt's remark about the four or five decisions that everyone should make for themselves. Watching their father casually dismiss the future of his intelligent brother, Sam was determined that doing something else with his life besides hunting was going to be one of those decisions he would make.

He was hungry again, like he seemed to be all the time lately, so he searched the fairly well stocked cabinet where Dean kept their snacks, grabbing a bag of jerky and then a bottle of water from the fridge. His eyes were tired from reading the small print of his paperback book so he decided to flop down on his impeccably made bed with the sharp military corners that his father insisted on and watch some crap cable.

John Winchester liked order, because disorganization could cost lives, and while both his boys could occasionally be messy with their various motel rooms in their father's absence they usually tried to keep things tidy. You never knew when Dad was coming home and there would be hell to pay if things weren't shipshape. A messier than usual room, coupled with Sam's smart mouth talking back to their father, had once earned both boys a session of making and unmaking their beds fifty times while Dad stood at attention overseeing them. Something neither of them ever wanted to repeat.

Lazily he flipped through the channels, looking for anything remotely interesting while he munched on the jerky, finally pausing on the History channel where a documentary on Julius Cesar was playing. Sam liked history. It was the one thing that made the research he did for his father's hunts even barely tolerable and the study of ancient civilizations was his favorite. He liked the structure and the basis of the justice system and, not for the first time, he contemplated a career in law. His own family broke so many laws on a regular basis that he though that maybe he could balance the scales by defending some when he got older.

The noise from the grill was getting louder so Sam finally had to turn the volume up to drown it out. He didn't care for the bar scene, unlike his father and brother who both seemed to fit right in with it. There had to be more to life than cheap laughs, cheaper women and the inevitable cirrhosis in his opinion. He wanted a real house to come home to every day and the same girl to come home to. Not the endless parade of faceless barflies that kept his brother entertained as they wandered from town to town.

When the clock was creeping towards midnight he switched off the TV and headed into the bathroom to brush his teeth and change for bed. The noise from the grill was now at full volume and as he pulled back the covers from his bed he was once again grateful for the Walkman and headphones that Dean had given him a few months ago. At least he could drown out the noise with music of his own choosing and try to get some sleep.

Slipping under the blanket, he flopped over on his stomach to get comfortable, wrapping his arms around his pillow, his hands within reach of the butterfly knife that he kept underneath. Tired, he closed his eyes and began to drift off, happy to let sleep pull him under. A few minutes later he was almost completely conked out when he felt his blankets being yanked off of him and someone smacking him hard on the ass.

Whipping around, knife in his right hand and swinging, Sam blinked his eyes open, ready to fight whoever it was that had broken into their room. As the rush of adrenaline pulsed through his veins he caught the mischievous grin on his brother's face as Dean jumped back out of the range of Sam's knife, with approval in his eyes.

"Nice reflexes, Sammy!" Dean commented, laughing as he flopped down on the end of Sam's bed.

Sam sat up against the headboard, still getting his bearings back as he fully woke up, mumbling an impressive string of profanity because his brother could be such a jerk sometimes.

"What the hell, Dean," he snapped, closing the knife and returning it to its usual place. "I could have hurt you, idiot."

"In your dreams, geek boy," Dean replied, still laughing as he got up and headed over to the closet and pulled out his duffel. He threw it on his own bed and opened the drawer next to the sink, pulling out a tiny colorful box before sitting down on his bed and rummaging through his bag.

Sam rubbed his eyes irritably, resisting the urge to punch his brother for smacking him like that and waking him up after being such a dick about telling him to be in bed.

"What are you doing here, anyway," he asked, still slightly groggy and annoyed. "Don't you have two more hours on your shift?"

Dean turned around, mischief dancing in his eyes, as he held out a little chocolate swiss roll with a single candle already burning in the middle.

"Did you think I forgot?" he asked, feigning a hurt expression. "It's not every day that your little brother turns seventeen, Sammy."

Sam tried hard to maintain his affronted glare but felt it slipping as soon as he saw the cake. The Little Debbie Swiss Roll had become a fixture for birthdays for the Winchester brothers who rarely ever had a real birthday cake to celebrate with. Money had always been tight when they were little, and even now with Dean more than helping with expenses that made their financial situation significantly more comfortable where a real cake could be purchased, they still held on to the traditional of the little chocolate treat.

"Make a wish, kiddo," Dean said, passing the roll over to Sam who immediately reached for it. "And make it count."

Sam grinned at him, a full smile that showed all the dimples. He hesitated for the briefest of seconds before blowing out the lone candle, plucking it out and breaking the cake in half to share with his brother.

With a mouth full of chocolate Sam tucked his legs underneath him and leaned back against the wall the bed abutted.

"You could have just woken me up, you know," he muttered grumpily, even as his dimples were still peeking out. He sighed happily, sucking some of the cream filling from the middle. "You didn't have to smack me like that, you freak."

Dean snorted as he licked chocolate from his thumb. "Hey, everyone gets a birthday spanking," he replied, cocking an eyebrow threateningly at his little brother. "One smack down, sixteen more to go."

Now Sam did glare at him, pointing a finger still smeared with chocolate that made the gesture a little less menacing.

"Try it and I'll break your hand, jerk."

Dean laughed softly at the look of fury of his little brother's face that was so fierce that it looped back around to cute. Sam may be seventeen now but he still looked ten years old sometimes.

"Easy, tiger," he soothed, holding up a hand in defeat. He rummaged next to his bag again and pulled out a small wrapped package that he tossed to the kid who caught it easily.

"Happy Birthday, little brother," he seriously, internally wishing Sam had more of a celebration in store for him than the small gestures he could make.

Sam grinned again before tearing off the paper, drawing in a sharp breath when he uncovered the pricey scientific calculator he had been coveting for a while.

"Dean," he whispered, awestruck by the gift. "We can't afford this."

"Pffft," Dean huffed, shrugging with an affronted scowl on his face. "Don't tell me what I can afford, Sammy. We're doing just fine. You wanted it and you deserve it. That's all you need to know."

Sam held the package for another quick second and then dropped it on the bed, standing up and grabbing his brother around the neck for a quick hug. Dean rolled his eyes, but he wrapped his arms around the kid and hugged him back because, seriously, Sammy could be such an emo little bitch sometimes.

"Alright, alright," he muttered, patting Sam's back gently before slowly pushing the kid away, the embrace becoming uncomfortable for him.

Sam smiled knowing how much his brother outwardly protested against chick flick moments when really? He was about them. Dean could fool just about everyone else, including their father sometimes, but he couldn't fool his kid brother. He returned to his own bed and immediately began picking open the plastic packaging around the calculator.

"What are you doing here so early, anyways," he asked, jerking his chin over to the clock radio on the nightstand that showed that it was only a little past twelve thirty. 

Dean flopped down on his bed and kicked off his boots as he stretched out and yawned. 

"I'm done for the night," he answered matter-of-fact, taking off his watch and flinging it onto the nightstand. 

Sam paused in his calculator extraction to throw his brother a scowl. "Why?" 

Dean snorted and sat back up to remove his socks and outer shirt. "Why? Because it's my pain in the ass little brother's birthday as of midnight. I thought I might actually spend it with him." 

"Oh," Sam replied quietly, the thought surprisingly more pleasing than he would have admitted openly. 

"Oh," Dean parroted back, his mouth twisting up in a little smirk. He watched Sam struggle needlessly for a minute with the package before shaking his head and offering his own knife. 

"I would have been here earlier," he began explaining as his kid brother finally succeeded in freeing his gift, "but I wasn't sure JP could handle things on his own. I was hoping to catch you before you fell asleep, actually." 

Sam nodded absently as he began to pour over the folded white sheets of instructions and Dean stood up and sauntered over to the fridge and grabbed a beer. 

"So what did you wish for?" he asked as he took a swig and wiped his mouth with his hand. 

"If I tell you, it won't come true," Sam answered petulantly, never raising his head from his paperwork, but Dean could see a snarky dimpled smile peeking out. 

"Yeah, ok, Pinocchio," Dean laughed as he downed the rest of the bottle in record time. "Tomorrow you'll wake up and be a real live boy, don't worry." 

He ignored Sam flipping him off again and headed into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. He could use a shower to get the pervasive stench of cigarette smoke out of his skin but he was just too tired right now. With the running around to shop for the calculator he hadn't been able to get his usual nap in before the start of his shift. Making his way back out to the main room he stripped to his boxers and then slipped on a clean T-shirt before pulling back his blanket and top sheet and crawling into bed. 

"That can wait until morning, Sammy," he said with a little firmness in his voice. "Go brush your teeth and get back into bed and I'll let you play hooky tomorrow." 

"I already brushed my teeth," Sam replied absently as he scrolled through the functions. "And why would I play hooky?" 

"And you just ate chocolate," his brother reminded him pointedly, too tired to spar with Sam. "I'm not going to pay for some dentist's new Mercedes because you need fillings. Go brush again." 

Sam rolled his eyes and huffed but he put down the calculator and slid off of his bed, obediently heading into the bathroom to give his teeth a second pass. 

"You're bossy, do you know that?" he snapped at his brother when he exited the bathroom and got back into his own bed. 

"Yeah, I'm awesome," Dean replied easily, his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes already closed. "I thought you might want to go to that museum you keep bugging me about, and maybe see a matinee of Gladiator. I have tomorrow off." 

"Seriously?" Sam asked, eyes wide with shock. You usually couldn't get his brother near a museum unless something needed to be killed in it. 

"Yes, seriously," Dean affirmed, rolling over and dragging his blanket up to his neck. "Now shut up and go to sleep before I change my mind." 

Not wanting to risk it, Sam decided he should just shut up and go to sleep. 

They both slept in late the next morning, each taking a long lazy shower that they usually didn't have enough time or hot water for, which was a nice benefit to waiting past check out time for most nightly guests. To Sam's surprise Dean passed on the standard drive thru that provided them their breakfast on the way to Sam's school most mornings, choosing instead to pull into the parking lot of a nice diner where Sam was able to order an enormous portion of his favorite pancakes and a bowl of fresh fruit salad that didn't come served in a bag and handed through a window. 

After breakfast Sam was allowed to leisurely stroll through the museum he had been going on and on about since they had arrived in the area. Like the good big brother he kept telling Sam that he was Dean kept his mouth shut, refraining from making any wise cracks that would spoil his little brother's geek time as he followed the kid from exhibit to exhibit. Sam was bubbling and enthusiastic as a puppy, and Dean swore that he could practically see a tail wagging if he squinted, afterwards insisting that his brother pick out a few souvenirs from the gift shop. 

Lunch consisted of nachos, a large bucket of popcorn with extra butter, peanut M&Ms and Gummy Bears that they hoovered through while Russell Crowe slashed and bashed his way across the screen. The hours of solid action had Dean jonesing to punch something but he settled for making some mental notes to add to their training regimen. Once the movie was over, Sam pressed his birthday luck and cajoled his brother into letting him drive. 

The Impala had only been Dean's car since his twenty-first birthday in January so it was a tough sell to hand the keys over to his little brother. But those damned puppy dog eyes were lethal, and logically he knew that the kid was a fairly skilled driver, trained under the same tutelage as Dean had been himself, so he clenched his teeth and passed them over, promising a world of hurt for the tiniest of scratches that Sam knew better than to take as an idle threat. 

They spent the rest of the afternoon cruising around to nowhere in particular, Sam perfectly capable at the wheel which didn't actually mean that his brother wasn't white knuckling it in the passenger seat since he started the engine. By the time that they had driven by an Indian restaurant that Sam begged to try for dinner, Dean would have promised the kid anything, up to and including eating curry whatever to get him to pull over, so Sam carefully signaled and easily swung into the parking lot. 

The Maharajah Palace was cheesy enough looking in Dean's opinion, painted gaudy colors and sporting a small onion shaped dome on the top that looked wildly out of place in the plain, blue collar Oklahoma neighborhood, but Baby was parked and the keys were back in his pocket so he shut his mouth and followed Sam inside. Through the door they were assaulted with a wave of spices in the air, not altogether unpleasant, with the strains of a weird sounding guitar and a woman with a high warbling voice playing in the background that had Dean raising his eyebrows. 

A pretty young lady in a brightly colored dress with a long black braid down her back handed them menus which Dean just shoved back at Sam, telling him to order whatever he wanted for the both of them, while he took out his phone and checked messages. Sam carefully perused and was well prepared when she returned, grinning from ear to ear as he placed their order. 

His big brother didn't really care what they wound up eating, he was just enjoying the smile on the kid's face. One that didn't make too many appearances during these teenaged days of anger and angst. All too often when Sam wasn't carping on and on about their frequent moves he was either brooding or had his nose stuck in a book, and there were blocks of days in a row where Dean really missed just having fun hanging out with his kid brother. With their lives as they were he wasn't ashamed to admit that Sam was his best friend. 

The only friend Dean had ever needed really. 

Since he left school working a paying job was a necessity for him because their dad already had his hands full with his search for their mother's killer and all of the other hunts he took on to spare other families from the devastation of their own, and Dean was happy to pitch in. His various jobs, sometimes actual legal ones over the table, provided food and shelter for himself and his brother as well as the little things that Sam needed and occasionally just wanted, like money for school trips, special books and social outings. 

Dean was making out okay at the Hi-View with the only drawback being his hours that kept him apart from his brother in the evenings when Sam was home from school. With their father's mandated training schedule and the time they spent helping him research on the weekends, it didn't leave a lot of frivolous brother time. 

It's not that Dean wasn't proud of Sam's impressive grades, earned under pretty stressful situations with their constant travel. 

_He was damn proud of the kid even if he didn't say it out loud._

But secretly, he was ready for his brother to graduate already so they could all travel together all the time, keeping up with the family business of hunting things and saving people without the near constant worry about not being there to watch his father's back. 

Dean was only one person after all, with loyalties torn between the two most important people in his life. John Winchester was one of the best hunters in the game. Everyone knew that. But he was still just a man, and men make mistakes no matter how good they are. Truthfully, Dean wasn't sure how he would survive if his father was hunting alone one day and something got him before he got it because Dean was in a motel somewhere with his thumbs up his ass while Sammy was going to high school. 

They had left Sam alone on several occasions but never really for very long periods of time, or farther than a few hours drive from where they were hunting. The kid was strong, well trained and he was definitely old enough to watch out for himself, but there was a clear and present fear in their father's eyes as to the safety of his youngest son. One that he had never really displayed regarding his eldest, and that was fine as far as Dean was concerned, because it had always been his job to watch out for Sammy and it was a responsibility he took very seriously. 

The pretty waitress brought over two steaming cups of something that looked like milky coffee and Dean almost sent it back because he drank his coffee black like a man should, damnit. Only princesses like his little brother drank creamy, swirly, fancy pants coffee drinks, _thank you very much_. 

But Sam was giving him _that look_. The one that said that Dean could possibly be ruining the whole outing if he didn't sack up and drink the girly coffee, so he sighed in resignation and picked the cup up, sniffing suspiciously at it and immediately had his nostrils assaulted with a heavy waft of spice that tickled his nose hairs. 

"Will you just try it already," Sam huffed, as he took a sip from his own cup. "It's Spice Tea. You'll like it." 

Dean leaned away from the cup, a look of revulsion on his face. "Tea? Do I look like an old British woman to you?" 

And there went the puppy eyes again, and if Sam didn't stop it immediately Dean was going to start making him wear sunglasses full time because it was unfair for him to have that kind of advantage over his older, bigger, smarter and better looking brother. 

To make his little brother happy Dean took a tentative sip, feeling the unfamiliar flavors on his taste buds and finding himself surprised that they weren't unpleasant. A bigger swallow a moment later and he had to admit that the tea was okay. Of course he would never admit to drinking it to anyone. Like _Ever_. But he would enjoy it right now because he was already paying for it and they were raised to not waste their food. 

_Yep. That was it._

The song changed and now it was a man with a high warbling voice with heavy percussion providing the background as the waitress placed a large appetizer plate of...something or another...in front of them. Dean scanned the plate and saw what looked like large flat tortilla chips with seeds, some triangular deep fried things, chunks of reddish meaty chunks, long strips of _some kind of unidentifiable something_ and meatball-ish things with cups of God knows what kind of dipping sauce type stuff in them. 

He restrained the urge to pull out his flask of holy water and sprinkle the entire plate with it, just to be on the safe side, but the hopeful expression on Sam's face and the need to look brave in front of the kid won out. He took his fork and stabbed the nearest thing and popped it in his mouth. 

And you know what? It didn't suck. 

Their junk food lunch had kicked up an appetite and they had just about inhaled the entire plateful without pausing for breath when Sam's phone started to ring. Dean frowned at the intrusion because their dad hated it when they tried to take calls during meals, and both brothers at one point or another had their phones taken from them for failing to put them on silent during the rare occasion that the family ate out together. 

Sam pulled the phone out of his pocket and his eyes got that tight look in them when he was either annoyed or worried which kicked up Dean's stress level a notch. 

"It's Dad," Sam informed him, his forehead puckered as he hit the talk button. 

"Hi, Dad," he said cautiously, worry winning out because their Dad never called Sam when Dean could be available. 

_"Hey, Sammy. Happy Birthday, Son."_

_Oh, right._

Sam ignored his brother's questioning look and sat up a little straighter in his chair simply from muscle memory. 

"Thanks, Dad. Is everything okay? Are you okay?" he asked, a little worried. 

_"Yeah, kiddo. Everything is fine."_

Dad sounded tired, like he usually did after a hunt, and Sam could have sworn that he sounded a little sad too but his father usually didn't do sad too often if it wasn't related to their mother, so maybe he was just imagining it. 

_"What about you boys? Doing anything fun?"_

Sam nodded at Dean, silently letting him know that their father was fine, watching the relief wash over his brother's slightly pale face. 

"Um, yes, sir. We're just having dinner. Dean took me to a museum and then to the movies," he rambled on, immediately snapping his mouth shut as he realized that he had just told John that he hadn't been in school today. Cursing himself he bit back a yelp when Dean gave him a vicious kick under the table. 

His brother was glaring at him now and he scrunched his face apologetically, sorry that his mouth might cause trouble for the both of them. Fortunately Dad didn't seem to notice. 

_"That's good, kiddo. Listen, Sammy. I'm sorry I'm not there. I wanted to be. Maybe next week. We'll do something special when I get back, okay?"_

And Sam sighed, because he had been given this speech before so he was used to it. Dad would keep his word and they would do something together as a family when they were reunited. Probably dinner, and maybe a "fun" outing that would involve getting familiar with whatever weapon his father gave him as a birthday gift. Secretly a very small part of him wished that his father wasn't absent quite so much, especially on special days like this. 

"Sure, Dad," he replied, as respectfully as he could, because he knew from experience that kicking up a fuss over the phone wasn't productive for anything other than picking a fight. 

_"Okay, Son. I'll see you soon. You mind your brother while I'm gone."_

"Yes, sir," he promised for the millionth time. His matching command to Dean's _Watch out for Sammy_. 

_"Let me talk to your brother for a minute."_

Sam handed his phone over to Dean's anxious hand, picking up his fork and poking around at the food on his plate that seemed a little less pleasing than it had a minute ago. He idly listened to Dean's side of the conversation which never really amounted to more than _"Yes, sir. No, sir. Three bags full, sir."_

Dean had such blind devotion to their father and sometimes Sam just couldn't understand why his big brother would never question a word the man said. Their father wasn't perfect. Not by a long shot. But his brother faithfully carried out every order Dad gave with unwavering obedience, even when Sam was pretty sure that underneath it all Dean disagreed with what he was being told to do. 

A few tables over a small family were enjoying their dinner. Sam watched them enraptured. Probably a little on the creepy side to be perfectly honest. Father, mother, two teenage boys and a little girl. They were laughing, the parents listening to their kids teasing each other about the spiciness of their meals. Sam watched jealously as the little family interacted with each other, so easily and natural, and a pang of hurt engulfed him as he found himself missing his father and yearning for the mother he couldn't remember to casually push the hair off his forehead the way the mother at the other table had just done with her younger son. 

Dean handed back his phone just as their entrees arrived. Several silver dishes filled with steaming meats and vegetables in sauces and fluffy rice, along with a basket of hot wedges of pita like bread. As the little feast was spread out in front of them Sam twisted his lips in grim realization that his appetite had waned, although there would be plenty to take home for dinner tomorrow, so that was a plus. 

"Sammy? You with me?" he heard Dean ask, his voice laced with concerned as he frowned at Sam. 

Sam nodded and mentally shook off his momentary sorrow. Dean had given him such a great day and he felt a wave of shame pass over him for his ungrateful thoughts on his lack of family a few minutes ago. His brother deserved better than to have him only halfway present while they ate. 

To please Dean he made an effort to dig in, enjoying the myriad of flavors that was a far cry from their normal fare. Sam liked to try new things, explore different cultures and expose himself to exciting and less life endangering experiences than he was usually given the opportunity to. And as he thought about it, that wasn't really fair either. 

Dad was pretty good about checking out local attractions while they crisscrossed back and forth around the country, even if they were sometimes boring. Sam was lucky he supposed, because he got to see a lot that most kids he met at his various school could only dream about. Just last year Dad took them to see the Aztec temples in Mexico City after they hunted a chupacabra. But it was as if the trips were spoiled by the purpose of them. 

It was hard to enjoy seeing the world's largest ball of twine (not that large, really) when the night before you were stitching up your brother, under your father's intense scrutiny, while Dean was practically bleeding out at the motel from a run in with a pissed off spirit. 

For Dean's sake he tried to keep his enthusiasm up during the rest of their meal but he should have known better, because he couldn't fool his brother any more than his brother could fool him. Back in the car, Dean relieved because he was back behind the wheel, his brother called him out on his earlier bout of melancholy. 

"Alright, spill, bitch. What's got your panties in a twist?" 

Sam sighed, not wanting to bring the mood down anymore than he already had, but his brother was like a dog with a bone when he thought that Sam was hurting or hiding something and the inquisition wouldn't end until the younger brother had spilled his guts to his big brother's satisfaction. 

"Dad said he might be back next week," he answered, his voice flat and final. 

Dean snorted and he threw his little brother a carefree smile. "Yeah, he told me that too. That's great, isn't it? He's been gone too long as it is." 

"Deeean," Sam practically whined, annoyed that he didn't seem to get it. "If he comes back that early, then I'll probably have to leave school. It's so close to the end of the year and I don't want to move again so soon." 

He threw his brother a baleful look noticing the frown that spread across Dean's face. He could tell that his brother was conflicted. Dean would want their Dad back safe and sound and as soon as possible, but he was also aware of what another move would do to Sam's school record if he couldn't account for end of term exams anywhere. Sam also knew that Dean liked this particular job and this particular town. 

"I'll talk to him," Dean promised, only half convincingly because John Winchester didn't take suggestions from his kids. 

They drove in silence for a few more minutes, Sam's pensive face pressed against the window as the miles ticked by, his breath fogging up the glass. 

"Do you still want to know what I wished for this year?" he asked absently, avoiding his brother's searching gaze. 

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean replied quietly, turning back to watch the road. "Yeah, I do." 

"I wanted to be normal," he admitted. "Even if it's just for a little while," he added, rubbing his forehead where the moisture from the window was pressing against his bangs. "But it won't come true anyway, so I don't need to worry about superstitions," Sam added a little ruefully. 

"Normal is boring, Sam," his brother stated, matter-of-fact. "I'm not normal and look how the ladies love me," he added, putting the fake charm in his voice that Sam knew masked his sorrow. 

<"You had normal for four years," Sam countered, specifically turning away to avoid seeing the pain that the reminder of Dean's childhood always brought on. It wasn't his intention to bring up painful memories but sometimes he wondered if Dean truly understood that Sam had never experienced even a shred of a regular life. 

He clamped his eyes shut, expecting the usual lashing out that Dean threw at him whenever they talked about the past. Mom was practically a taboo subject most of the time and Sam had to beg for bits and pieces about their family life before because the subject was usually too overwhelming for both his father and brother to discuss. He was used to their ire when he dared mention it. 

"I know, Sammy," Dean muttered quietly, surprising Sam with his less than hostile response. 

They drove in silence for a few more minutes with Sam covertly studying his brother's face as he drove. Dean was an introverted thinker, the polar opposite of both John and Sam who were more 'shout first and ask questions later' type of conversationalists. He hated to see Dean look so uncomfortable after the nice day he had tried so hard to give. 

"I am pretty lucky though," Sam stated firmly, snapping Dean out of his thoughts. "I have the most awesome big brother who gave me a really great birthday." 

Dean threw him a quick look and Sam gave him his most sincere smile, practically willing Dean to see the truth of his words. The grim introspective frown slowly slid off of Dean's face, replaced with a genuine smile and a spark of mischief twinkling in his eyes. 

"You're damn right, you do," he agreed enthusiastically, sparing them both from further uncomfortable chatter by cranking up the radio and blaring AC/DC as they made their way back to the motel. 

There was no quarter given in the War of the Winchesters. 

Dean would swear on a stack of bibles that Sam's back went up the minute their father crossed over the town border a week after Sam's birthday. It was like the kid could practically sense Dad approaching, even though he had given no specific date of arrival at Hi-View. 

One minute Sam was sitting at the kitchenette quietly doing his calculus homework, made significantly more easy thanks to his nifty new toy, and then the next he was crabby and spoiling for a fight for absolutely no reason. Honestly, at this point, Dean wasn't even surprised when their Dad strolled through the door using the spare key he had taken with him at his departure weeks earlier. 

Almost immediately they were at each other's throats over literally everything. Dean no longer bothered to keep track of the disputes, they were all so petty. Dad couldn't tell Sam what the time of day was without his pain in the ass little brother questioning the veracity of the answer. Even when their father gave Sam the ornately carved _Suan Ywe Gou_ blade he had procured from Caleb on the trip back for Sam's birthday gift the kid couldn't even find the graciousness to be appreciative of Dad's offer to spend an evening with him showing Sam how to use it with the most effect. 

It was getting to the point that Dean couldn't be comfortable heading to the grill for his evening shift without feeling the need to sprint back to the unit a few times a night to check and make sure that they hadn't actually killed each other yet. 

Randy had generously offered a complimentary room for John's use so that he wouldn't have to squeeze in on a roll-away in the already small quarters and Dean suspected that his boss was bending over backwards because he had a pretty good idea that the family would be pulling out sooner than he had been hoping and was trying to make them all as comfortable as possible for as long as possible. So tensions were lower than they could have been because at least there were walls to separate John and Sam for a few hours a day. 

Still, on more than one occasion Dean had checked in on them only to find them mid battle, the hollow core motel doors practically vibrating from the volume of their shouting. He had expected trouble on this particular evening because Dad had dragged Sam back to their rooms right after dinner in the grill, having found the next hunt and needing help taking notes from a few lore books that Bobby had loaned him. 

As he hurried down the sidewalk, his hands full with plates of apple cobbler than both his father and brother favored, he could hear the raised voices four doors away and he swore under his breath while picking up his pace. By the time he opened the door to the unit he shared with Sam, balancing the plates on one hand so he could turn the key and push the door open with the other, his father and brother were going toe to toe in the middle of the room, appearing to be completely unaware of his arrival. 

"Samuel, I'm not going to tell you again," Dad growled, his eyes glaring menacingly. "People's lives are at stake, so you sit your ass down and do the job!" 

"Screw the job," Sam yelled, his face flushed and his breathing hitched. "I didn't choose to spend my life doing this shit!" 

_Oh God, Dean thought_ , rolling his eyes heavenwards in frustration. _Here we go_

He shoved the plates of cobbler on top of the dresser next to the door and went to insert himself between the two other Winchesters before this scene got too ugly. Usually their father would allow him to calm Sam down before the kid's mouth got him in deeper, but Dad apparently wasn't in a charitable mood at the moment. Which made Dean wonder how long this verbal tug of war had been waging already. 

John put a hand on Dean's chest and firmly pushed him back, keeping his eldest from wedging in between himself and his younger son. He held Sam's infuriated glare without blinking, leaning further forward into the kid's space, minutely pleased when the boy had the sense to back up an inch. 

"You want a choice, young man?" he demanded, his voice deceptively calm. "I'll give you a choice." 

Putting himself directly in Sam's face, a warning finger poked firmly in the kid's chest, he narrowed his eyes. 

"Either get yourself in the chair and get to work, or I will put you in the chair myself," he warned, his deep voice rumbling and dangerous. "But I'm telling you right now, if I have to put you in it? My belt's coming off first. _Your choice_." 

Sam's scowl was pure fury as he grit his teeth to keep himself from saying anything further, and Dean could see his little brother's chest heaving deeply, his shoulders radiating tension. Sam's stubbornness had pushed their father too far on several occasions, because the kid who was usually so smart couldn't seem to remember to keep his mouth shut when it came to fighting with their dad. 

If Dad was already belt level mad, they clearly had been sparring for longer than Dean had suspected. He didn't have any trouble believing that John would keep his word if Sam didn't obey because their father always followed through on a threat. Why Sam couldn't remember that, Dean didn't know. 

"Sammy," he called out softly, trying to lower the hostility in the room. "C'mon, man. Just do what Dad says already." 

Sam glared at Dean out of the corner of his eye because he refused to turn away from his father for even a second. His mouth puckered as a wave of betrayal hit him, wanting Dean to be on his side for a change, but Sam knew that it was just as likely that Dean would spit in their father's face as disagree with him. 

"Listen to your brother, Samuel," his father advised, removing the finger from Sam's chest. "He's giving you good advice." 

For a brief moment Sam contemplated telling his father what he could do with the lore books and taking the consequences, but realistically he knew it wouldn't be worth it. Sam was already a big kid and getting larger and stronger by the day, but he still accepted that his father was perfectly capable of physically sitting Sam down in the chair if he decided to so he shamefully found himself backing down. 

One way or another Sam always wound up doing exactly what his father told him to do, so what good did it do him to have to spend hours taking notes while sitting on a sore ass? He'd had to do it before, because this wasn't Sam's first rebellion over research, and it just sucked. 

Sam shut his eyes in frustration, taking a second to will his emotions to calm down before sliding into the chair next to the heavy, ragged cloth books. _Only one more year_ he told himself as he silently stewed. In one more year he could get out from under his father's thumb and start living his own life. 

"Everything in the first five chapters, Sam," he heard his father instruct. "You understand, young man?" 

Sam curled his hands into fists under the table, practically cutting into the skin of his palms as he struggled to maintain his composure. 

"Yes, sir," he bit out as respectfully as he could, just wanting his dad out of the room and leaving him alone already. 

"And you can run an extra five miles tomorrow for that smart mouth of yours," his father said sternly as he stormed out to head back to his own room, slamming the door as he left. 

Dean rubbed his face, shaking his head as a pounding pain developed near his temples. These little pissing contests between his father and brother were exhausting. 

"You could have backed me up for once," he heard Sam mutter petulantly from his place at the table. 

"Yeah, and you could have just done what you were told for once, too," Dean shot back, tired of the nonsense. "I save your ass all the time. Why do you have to always be like that, Sammy?" 

Sam scowled, even as he opened the book to the appropriate page and grabbed a pen. 

"He doesn't have the right to just order me around like that, Dean," he protested, the grip on the pen so tight Dean worried it might snap. 

"Uh, yeah he does, genius. Like it or not, you're still a kid and he's still your father," Dean reminded his brother. "Dad does what he does for a reason. Don't forget that." 

"This is bullshit," Sam snapped, shoving his notebook aside. "No other guy in my school is spending the evening taking notes on witchcraft lore." 

Dean shuddered involuntarily because he hated witches and wasn't really keen on heading to the next gig. They were just nasty, body fluid spewing bitches. He sighed, because now that Sam's anger was receding he could see his little brother's shoulders sagging in defeat and sadness. 

"Yeah, that's true," Dean agreed. He grabbed the plates of cobbler from the dresser and laid them in front of the kid as a peace offering. 

"But they don't have awesome big brothers that offer room service with their favorite dessert either. You can even eat Dad's if it makes you feel better to deprive the old man of a treat," he winked conspiratorially. 

His brooding little brother glared side eyed at the plates before deciding that since he had already punked out in the fight with his father his disposition could be bought if the price was right. Right now the price of his tolerance returning was two servings of Chef Emily's homemade cobbler. 

Dean smirked, grabbing one plate and dumping its contents on top of the other. His father would probably be more in the mood for a shot of whisky than dessert anyway. 

"Don't get that crap on Bobby's books or he'll kill you," he advised Sam, who knew it was true. "I'll be back in a few hours. Behave yourself." 

Sam took in a deep breath and chose to say nothing inflammatory, scooping up a big forkful of the cobbler as he began to scan the first pages. Taking that as his cue to leave, Dean slipped out of the door, not surprised to see his father leaning in the open doorway of his own room, hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. 

"He working?" Dad asked, jutting his chin towards the door to the boys' room. 

"Yes, sir," Dean replied easily, dropping down onto the chair propped up against the wall under the room's window. He needed to get back to the bar soon, but it was Monday night and fairly slow so he knew he had some time. 

His father joined him in the adjacent seat and leaned back, closing his eyes as he rubbed them. 

"Your brother is more than I have the strength for most days," he said tiredly. "I know it's payback. My stepfather always said it was a miracle he didn't kill me before I joined the Marines." 

Dean laughed quietly, having heard many stories about the step grandfather who had died before he was born. It was because of him that John joined the Corps after spending his early teens hearing war stories of his stepfather's days in the service. 

The two of them sat in comfortable silence for a couple of minutes while Dean worked up the nerve to approach his father about a sensitive topic. 

"What is it?" his father asked suddenly, and Dean smiled because he should have known that his dad would sense he had something on his mind. Nervously, Dean rubbed the back of his neck. Another one of his tells that his father spotted instantly and resulting in him nudging his son's knee with his own to get his attention. 

"C'mon, dude. Spill already." 

Dean sat up straighter, pivoting to his side to squarely address his father. 

"What are the chances that Sammy and I can stay here until he's done at school for the year? It's only a few more weeks," he rushed on, not wanting to lose momentum or his father's indulgence. "I'm making decent money. It would be nice to have a little cushion when we move on." 

John frowned, his mind warring over the practical validation of his son's argument and his own inner panic at leaving his boys on their own too long. He had already been gone for a few weeks, longer than he cared to, and he had been anxious to have them within sight again. The life necessitated that he occasionally be parted from them for their own safety, but he didn't like it one bit. 

" _Please_?" he heard Dean say quietly. 

He turned towards his son and looked deep into Dean's bright green eyes, seeing the naked pleading in them. His eldest never begged for anything for himself, and John knew his kid too well to think that this wasn't all about Sam's oft repeated demand for stability. He pondered refusing just out of sheer stubbornness because his younger son was too spoiled by far sometimes. His little tantrum earlier being proof of that. 

But Dean was right. They had a good set up here and it would be foolish to pull them away just for spite and John's own bruised ego that his little boy pitching a fit again. John could do the next gig easily enough on his own after all these years of hunting solo. And if it made Dean's life slightly easier to wrangle a brother that wasn't chomping at the bit twenty-four seven, then John owed it to his eldest to at least do that. 

"Yeah, okay," he finally agreed, a niggling spasm of guilt pinching his gut when he heard his son release the breath he hadn't realized the kid had been holding in. 

"But your brother isn't getting a pass," John warned his eldest. "Until you leave to come join me, he's on lock down except for chores and training." 

"Yes, sir," Dean agreed quickly, eager to consent to anything that his father required if it allowed Sam to stay in his current school. 

"Not one extra day, Dean," John stated firmly, getting his point across. "As soon as Sam's last class is done, you pack up and head out." 

"Yes, sir," Dean nodded. He glanced quickly at his watch and realized that he really needed to get back before JP helped himself to all the tips. He stood, grabbing the dirty extra plate that he had taken from his room, and turned to leave. 

"Thanks, Dad," he said softly, before sprinting back down the sidewalk and into the grill. 

By the time Dean's shift was over, later than usual because he stayed behind to mop up for JP to pay him back for covering earlier, Sam was already in bed, his mop of brown hair buried in the pillows. On the table Dean could see page after page of his brother's neatest handwriting ready for their father's perusal in the morning. 

He quietly slipped into the bathroom, closing the door as silently as he could and turning the shower on. The cigarette smoke was especially heavy tonight since his best tipper had lit the next one with the one she was just finishing all night. He was happy to flirt and take her money but he smelled like a friggin' ashtray. 

He let the water pound down on his weary body longer than normal. For an old place the Hi-View had pretty decent water pressure,and he was happy to indulge in it as long as possible. Who knew what the next place would be like and Dean loved some good water pressure. 

Emerging in a cloud of steam, wearing only his amulet and a towel wrapped around his slim waist, he moved around the main room quietly, pulling pajama pants and a clean shirt from the closet where he had finally hung his clothes. By the time he had dressed for bed he knew from the sound of his brother's breathing that the kid was awake and playing possum. 

"It's late, Sammy," he whispered as he slipped under the covers. "You've got school in a few hours." 

"Doesn't matter," Sam answered, his words muted by the pillow over his mouth. 

Dean smirked in the darkness over the kid's full on sulk. Such a little drama queen. 

"Ah, yeah it does, genius," he scolded mildly. "I talked Dad into letting us stay until your classes are finished for the year. Don't make me look bad by flunking out now." 

Gratifyingly Sam shot up in bed, and even in the semi-darkness of the room he could see the kid wide-eyed and mouth gaping open. 

"Seriously?" Sam shouted, before being shushed by his brother. "Seriously?" he asked again, much quieter this time. 

"Yeah, seriously," Dean answered, his voice tinged with indulgent affection. "Now get your ass to sleep because I'm wiped out and I gotta drive you in a few hours." 

Sam obediently slid back down and dragged his blankets up to his neck. In the other bed Dean shifted, getting comfortable, the tension of the past few days easing off and his mind shutting down. He slowly drifted, the buzzing in his head from an evening of stress, yelling and much too loud country music starting to recede. From Sam's bed he heard a quiet whisper. 

_"Thank you, big brother."_

And that was all Dean needed to slip off into peaceful slumber. 


	2. June 2000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of a summer hunt for the Winchester family

The ancient cemetery was nearly pitch black, the heavy clouds obscuring the faint glow of the quarter moon that might have given them even the tiniest bit of ambient light as Sam shoveled dirt back into the freshly dug up grave. His eyes were hurting from having to squint since the two antiquated camping lights were not doing a great job of illuminating the area.

Sam's outer shirt was tied around his waist, his T-shirt clinging to him like a second skin in the humid North Carolina air, rivulets of sweat cascading down his back, chest and arms between the heat and the manual labor. He paid no attention to the blisters that were slowly forming on his hands as he dumped shovelful after shovelful of damp mossy earth into the hole, the casket and bones still radiating heat like a furnace from the salt and burn.

The air was dense but silent, the cemetery far from any road or house. It's like that with these tiny older bone yards and it makes their job a little easier when they don't have to worry about prying eyes or ears as they get the job done. Aside from the occasional cicada, the only sounds were Sam's labors and the odd grunt or hiss from the trunk of the car where Dad had popped Dean's shoulder back in place and was now taping his bruised ribs.

Sam doesn't have to look at his father to know the man is wearing the disapproving frown that his face sports when he is displeased with the behavior of one of his wayward sons. Dean broke protocol by throwing himself in the line of fire of the pissed off ghost of Maynard Briggs while Dad took care of the remains. Maynard had hurled Dean into one of the crumbling headstones and Sam could still hear the sickening crack of his brother's flung body crashing through the smooth rock ringing in his mind. 

It's not the first time Dean has been thrown against a gravestone, and Sam sadly ponders the fact that it probably won't be the last time either.

Sam himself met the sharp, pointy side of a tree when he attempted to distract the spirit away from his unconscious brother, but there had been no time for real retaliation from Maynard. A split second later Sam had seen his father's face light up in the darkness with the scorching red glow of fire from the grave and Maynard's sizzling ghostly wisp along with it.

All he wanted to do now was fill the hole back in and head back to the motel for a hot shower and a few hours sleep on the lumpy cheap mattress. From the back of the car he heard the sounds of frustrated debate as Dean attempted to dodge the painkillers that Dad was insisting on dispensing to him. Dean didn't care for them, Sam knew. They made his brother too groggy and he always woke up disoriented and crabby and with a hangover worthy headache without the preceding fun. It was a wasted effort, Sam thought as he continued to shovel. 

Dad was going to win anyway, like he always did, so it was no use trying to fight him.

Sure enough, not a minute later, the passenger door of the Impala was pulled open and Dean was being forced to sit, probably before he fell down. Dad was striding back towards Sam, his own face slick with sweat and streaks of dirt, shoulders broad and intimidating in the glow of the camping lamp he carried with him. He reached out and pulled the shovel from Sam's hands, handing him the lamp.

"Go sit with your brother. I'll finish this."

Sam _wanted_ to check on his brother, but the stubborn streak in him took umbrage at being told to do it.

"I'm almost done, Dad," he protested, attempting to grab the shovel back. "Just let me finish and we can go."

"Sam," Dad growled, holding the shovel firmly with one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other, "just go sit with your brother!"

Sam huffed, but did as he was told. It didn't take a genius to see that his father was in no mood to be messed with right now. He stomped back over toward his brother, his shoulders taut with irritation, and flopped on the ground in front of where Dean was sitting with his legs out of the car. His brother's face was pale underneath the tan freckles and his eyes were closed, but Sam could see the pain Dean was unsuccessfully trying to suppress.

"You okay?" he asked, genuinely concerned because his brother really did look like shit.

"'M'fine, Sammy," Dean groaned quietly, carefully leaning to rest his head against the door frame. "Damn head is gonna be spinning now from those freakin' pills Dad made me take."

"What were you thinking, Dean?" Sam demanded, a little pissed at seeing his brother banged and bruised. "We were only supposed to shoot at him, not let him chase us!"

"I was thinking that I didn't want him going after _you_ , moron," Dean barked back, instantly regretting it when his ribs screamed at him for moving so quickly. "You didn't shoot, Sam."

Sam bit back another retort because he realized that his brother was right. Sam hadn't been ready to fire when Maynard appeared next to him. He hadn't been prepared like he was taught, and now his brother was paying the price for his mistake.

He averted his gaze away from his brother, ashamed of his inaction and even more for his rebuke. He glanced towards the grave, not surprised to see that Dad was already just about finished up. The man was a machine, never seeming to tire, no matter how much physical exertion he did.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam muttered, unable to look his brother in the face.

Dean sighed and shifted a little more, trying to find a comfortable position. Between his ribs and his shoulder it was a difficult task right now.

"I know," he said tiredly. "I'm sorry Dad is going to have my ass when we get back for breaking protocol too," he sighed, rubbing his eyes.

If possible, Sam felt even worse than he had a second ago because he knew it was true. Dean had disobeyed a direct order and their father did not look kindly at things like that. Shit was going to hit the fan when they got back to the motel, once Dad had reassured himself that his boys were physically okay. Failures to follow orders were treated harshly in their world.

Sam heard his father's heavy boot steps coming up behind him quickly and knew that it was time to go. He hefted himself up from the damp ground and held out a steadying hand as Dean pulled himself up from the passenger seat.

"Let's go, boys," Dad ordered. "Dean, give your brother the keys. You're in no shape to drive."

Dean immediately began to protest but was shut down quickly by his father. Without preamble, John grabbed Dean by a belt loop, holding him firm as he dug the car keys out of his son's front pocket.

"That wasn't a request, Son," he barked, throwing the keys in Sam's direction.

Dean stared daggers at his father for the few seconds that he dared to. John glared back, wordlessly quenching the fire of his eldest's brief rebellion until Dean relaxed his stance and allowed his dad to help ease him back into the passenger seat while Sam, _a bit too eagerly for Dean's taste_ , hopped behind the wheel and brought the car's engine roaring to life.

After John got Dean situated as well as possible to protect his shoulder and ribs, he leaned over towards Sam, lightly pressing a restraining hand on the steering wheel.

"Respect the vehicle, Sammy," he ordered, displeased with the unnecessary enthusiasm with which Sam gunned the engine. "And follow me closely. No stunt driving."

Sam huffed and resisted the urge to roll his eyes which would only get him in trouble. Dad would forever treat him like a child, he thought angrily as he slumped a little in the seat. It wasn't Sam's fault that Dean never let him drive the car. His brother had been driving the Impala since he was eleven and could barely reach the pedals, and ever since then Dean had treated the car like it was already his own.

Sam was thirteen before John had started teaching him because his growth was slower than Dean's had been. Now, at seventeen, he had legally had a license for almost a year, but his jerk brother refused to let him drive, so sue Sam if he wanted to enjoy the brief moments when he was allowed behind the wheel.

"Sam," his father growled, expecting verbal confirmation that his orders would be obeyed.

"Yes, sir," Sam replied, clenching his teeth together to prevent himself from starting a fight unnecessarily.

It was getting harder and harder to keep his temper in check lately, the few weeks respite from daily contact with their father while Sam had finished school beginning to wear off.

Dean had already had their motel room in Oklahoma packed up and their belongings in the car when he picked Sam up from his last day at school. Orders were orders, and since Dad had been accommodating enough to allow them to stay on longer than originally planned, Dean was going to make sure that his father's instructions were followed.

It had been a seventeen hour drive from the Hi-View to meet up with Dad outside of Charlotte, NC. Dean, usually happy to indulge in lazy back roads driving and leisurely enjoy his time at the wheel of his baby, had uncharacteristically raced on highways to rejoin John in the field, stopping only for a few brief power naps. Sam had been more than annoyed that Dean had chosen to rely on a few brief power naps instead of letting his little brother drive but, after the first rejection, he decided it wasn't worth the fight.

Truthfully, both boys had actually been happy to see their father. To everyone's surprise Sam didn't rush to pull out of Dad's welcoming hug when they arrived, enjoying the familiar comfort of being wrapped in his father's strong arms which still had the ability to make both of his sons feel safe, and John happily held onto his normally surly teenager for as long as Sam tolerated it. There weren't necessarily a touchy-feely family usually, but long absences did make them all appreciate being together, safe and healthy.

Dean slipped back into the relaxed security of his father's orbit, ghosting John's movements as they researched and prepared for the job. He was only truly happy when in the company of both his father and little brother, as if a piece of himself was missing when one of the other Winchesters were not present. Together again, he was looking forward to a good summer, when Sam's school needs didn't conflict with the hunts that his father found.

That was last week.

Now Sam was beginning to chafe under John's dominant personality again, even when he didn't really want to fight with his father. He had also promised himself that he would try hard to keep his mouth shut for Dean's sake as much as possible during the summer to pay his brother back for sitting on the supernatural sidelines in Oklahoma when he knew perfectly well that Dean would have been much happier fighting alongside John these past few weeks.

It was a testament to how much pain his brother actually was in that Dean leaned back in the seat with his eyes tightly shut while Sam followed their father's truck back to the motel. Normally the older brother sat like a hawk, watching every tiny movement when Sam was allowed behind the wheel. For his part Sam was driving exceptionally cautiously and smoothly. More concerned that his brother's battered body was not jarred by any unexpected sudden movement than he was with Dean's approval of his driving skills.

When Sam glided to a slow halt in front of their motel room Dean grunted and forced his eyes open, turning slightly to blink owlishly at his little brother.

"Sammy?"

Sam frowned at the confusion in his brother's voice, worried that maybe Dean, despite no external evidence, had sustained a concussion as well. Fortunately, Dean seemed to shake off his lethargy almost immediately, sitting up and hissing when he moved his shoulder too quickly.

"Damn pills," he groaned, shifting a little more to grab the door handle.

Dad was already at Dean's door before Sam had even cut the engine, opening it and reaching in to assist his injured son to his feet. If it had been Sam trying to help he knew his brother would have smacked his hands away and insisted on trudging the few steps on his own power, but Dean didn't dare try that with their father. He allowed his dad to help him stand and was actually grateful for the strong supporting arm wrapped around his waist as he stumbled towards the door to their motel room.

"Sammy, get the bags," Dad called out over his shoulder as he guided Dean inside.

Sam obediently grabbed his bag and Dean's out of the trunk of the Impala, selecting a few basic weapons as well because you never knew what you might need in the middle of the night in their line of work, and then grabbed Dad's bag out of the truck. With all three hefted over his shoulder he followed his father and brother into the room and dumped them on the kitchenette table. John eased his eldest down onto the bed Dean had claimed for himself earlier in the week, ignoring his son's protest as he unlaced Dean's boots before pulling them off along with his socks.

"M'not five," Dean muttered, sulking in a voice that a real five year old could claim.

Sam could have sworn that he saw his father roll his eyes but quickly dismissed the idea. John Winchester didn't have a sense of humor that his younger son was aware of.

"You're not getting undressed without help with those ribs either," Dad said firmly. "Can you stand up to get your jeans off?"

The tightness in Dean's expression told Sam volumes about just how much his brother didn't want to get back on his feet, but with their father hovering over him there was no way Dean was going to be allowed to just curl up under the blankets fully dressed, so he gave John a quick nod and groaned his way back up to a hunched over standing position.

His father held him steady as he unbuttoned and unzipped with shaky hands, pushing his mud filthy and torn jeans down to his buckling knees. John eased him back down to a sitting position and tugged them off the rest of the way, ignoring the affronted glare his eldest was shooting at him. The older hunter was tired and hungry and not in the mood to tread gently with his son over personal space. The sooner Dean was undressed and asleep in bed, the sooner John and Sam could shower and eat.

With the practiced hands of a father who had often undressed two cranky, sleepy and non compliant children over the years, John swiftly removed Dean's sweat soaked T-shirt without disturbing the injured shoulder and bundled his eldest under the blankets. Dean's drug stupor had him asleep before his head even hit the flat mangled motel pillow, his father grabbing an extra blanket out of the closet and draping it over his son. The ancient AC unit was kicking out a fair amount of cold air that felt good now, but with Dean asleep in only his boxers John didn't want the kid to wake up shivering once the pain meds had worn off.

With his first born medicated and settled for the night John turned his attention to his younger son who had been sitting at the table quietly observing. The veteran hunter had not failed to notice the hit Sam took against the tree earlier, nor the blood stain on the boy's back afterwards. Neither seemed to be something to immediately worry about, but now that his more injured child had been tended to John needed to see to his younger son as well.

"Sammy, take your shirt off, kiddo," John ordered gently, crossing the room to the kitchen area. "Let me see the injury to your back."

Sam immediately stiffened out of reflex. He was seventeen for crying out loud. He didn't need his daddy putting a Band Aid on his boo boo like a toddler. He slipped out of the forties era kitschy chair and tried to make a break for the bathroom.

"It's fine, Dad," he insisted, ducking his head away from his father's increasingly irritated frown. "It doesn't even hurt."

John reached out and snaked Sam's arm, his grip firm but not painful, and wondering, not for the first time that evening, exactly when his offspring had decided that their father's commands were optional.

"Not asking, Son," he growled, halting the boy's attempted escape. "Get your shirt off and take a damn seat."

Sam huffed and postured, mentally debating the merits of picking a fight and then deciding against it after casting a quick glance at his sleeping brother. Dean needed rest to begin healing his injuries, and a brawl between his father and brother would rouse him even from a drug induced sleep. Sam frowned in defeat and grudgingly sat back down in his recently vacated seat. He lifted his shirt to yank it off, only to feel the sharp sting on his shoulder when the fabric pulled away taking a fair amount of dried on blood and soft skin with it. He drew a quick pained breath between his teeth and scowled, knowing that he had just proven to his father that the man had been right to worry after all. Wound disclosure was another iron clad rule in their messed up lives.

John pulled the first aid kit out of his go bag, arranging the contents in an orderly fashion, before going to the sink and thoroughly washing his hands. _Stubborn kid_ , he thought, weary and annoyed. Everything had to be such a fight with Sam. Now his son had a trail of blood wending its way down his back. Sammy could lose an arm during a hunt and would still insist to his father that nothing was wrong just to be contrary.

Silently fuming, Sam sat quietly as his father cleaned his wound and assessed the damage, breathing a sigh of relief when John decided that he could close the gash with a butterfly instead of stitches. The boy had experienced motel room stitches before and it was never an experience that you got used to. His dad worked quickly and efficiently, his movements soothing and gentle to lessen the pain his son needed to endure during first aid.

Feeling the gentleness in John's ministrations even as he clinically treated his injured son, it was times like this that made Sam ache to be closer to his father. Dean often accused him of being unnecessarily hostile to John, and even Sam admitted to himself that the emotion that mostly reached the surface of his relationship with his dad was _hate_.

Sam hated their life. Hated the constant upheaval and danger and futility of chasing a faceless, nameless villain who had torn his family apart. He hated the vagabond drifter schooling and the illegal occupations that kept their little family fed and housed. He hated the evil they encountered everywhere and the ever present feeling of never being safe. At his various schools over the years he had met other kids who had lost a parent and still had normal lives and, for that, he hated his father for not choosing to do the same.

But for all that John was still the only parent Sam had ever known. His big brother loved and cared for him like another father or mother, or both, and while Sam was daily grateful for that it wasn't quite the same. In spite of all of the arguments and hardships that came with being John Winchester's son, Sam still loved his dad deeply, and that conflict of emotion warred inside of him every day, making him even more angry and prone to lashing out than if he did only feel hate for the man who helped give him life.

"You want the first shower?"

Sam blinked his eyes at the question, startled out of his thoughts by the deep rumble of his father's voice. He hadn't even realized that Dad had finished with his wound care and was now standing in front of him looking concerned. Sam desperately wanted a shower but John was still mud and sweat soaked, looking pretty rough himself, so he shook his head.

"I can wait."

His dad frowned, visually assessing him with worry still evident in his eyes. He seemed on the verge of saying something only to change his mind and head into the bathroom, his go bag in his hands.

Sam slumped tiredly across the table, folding his arms and resting his head in the crook of an elbow after hearing the shower start to run. With his shirt off the cold air in the room was starting to produce goose flesh on his sweat and mud crusted skin after only a few minutes. Feeling dirty and itchy he briefly pondered putting on a shirt, but not wanting to soil one of his few clean ones, he settled for dragging himself over to his bed and pulling a spare blanket around his shoulders.

Dad didn't take too long in the shower, clearly reserving some of the limited hot water for his son. When he emerged in a cloud of steam, wet hair slicked back and stubble making him look dangerous instead of exhausted as it had moments earlier, he was dressed in clean clothes and seemed ready to go again. John swept his eyes across the room to check on Dean, making sure his oldest seemed to be sleeping comfortably and then dropped his bag next to the fold out couch where he had been sleeping.

"I'm going out to pick up some dinner," he told Sam, whose stomach growled loudly at the reminder that they had not yet eaten that evening. "Keep an eye on your brother."

"Yes, sir."

Sam's tired and detached voice brought a frown to his father's face, and before he knew it John's calloused hand was gripping his chin and forcing his eyes upward. He scowled but his dad was insistent, and Sam knew the drill well enough to know that his father was checking his pupils for signs of concussion.

"I'm fine, Dad," he snapped, trying to pull out of his father's hold and finding himself unable to do so. It was unfair, really, that Dad was so much stronger.

While Sam stewed under John's careful observation he became hyper aware of Dean beginning to shift slightly in the next bed, so he clamped his mouth shut tightly to avoid challenging his father with heated words that would surely awaken Dean back to consciousness.

Once John had assured himself that his younger son wasn't suffering from any unseen head injuries he released Sam's chin, trying not to be hurt by the way the boy jerked his head away, his hazel eyes smoldering. He snagged the room key from the table and stalked towards the door.

"Careful with that back wound in the shower," he called over his shoulder, his voice more gruff than he intended.

***

There was a neon sign for a diner down the street and John decided that he could use the walk, so he bypassed his truck and trudged off down the cracked stone sidewalk. Although it had been a long day, the shower had revitalized him and what he really wanted right now was a good hard run. Even better would be a sparring session with his first born. Dean was now a formidable opponent and both of the older Winchesters relished the adrenaline rush of friendly hand to hand combat as a stress release.

But Dean was hurt. 

_Again_. 

Selflessly sacrificing his young body to protect his father and brother.

John ran his fingers through his damp hair as he barreled forward in the humid evening. His mind continuously replayed the image of his boy flying through the air and crashing shoulder first into an unforgiving slab of stone. He knew that he would have to tear his son a new one in the morning for disregarding a direct order and placing himself in the line of fire, even when he really just ached to gather up both of his boys in his arms and use his own body to shield them from anything that threatened them with harm.

But he couldn't do that.

Their family was cursed and John didn't have the luxury of coddling his children the way the love of a doting father inside of him wanted to. His boys needed to be ready, always. Prepared for whatever came at them, and it was his job to raise them right, even if it made them hate him. So when his boy woke from a drug induced slumber after being slam dunked into a gravestone, John would force the protective paternal affection back down his own throat and make himself verbally flay his son for a mistake that his child should never have been put into a position to make.

John knew that his actions made him a bastard. A tyrant of a drill sergeant that bullied his kids into obedience and submission. His boys were his entire world, his love for them intense enough to suck the air right out of his lungs when he allowed himself to really feel it. He had already lost his Mary, and John would be damned before he let his children be taken from him too. So if that meant he had to be hard on them, he would be. It was that simple.

They might look at him with loathing in their eyes, but that was okay as long they were alive to do it. That was what was important.

Stepping into the diner his nostrils were assaulted with the overly familiar smell of bacon grease and fryer oil. The place was clean for the neighborhood and the scent of sanitizing solution wafted from the empty tables and counter. He plopped down onto one of the swiveling counter stools and grabbed a menu from the small metal rack in front of him, pleased when it wasn't sticky with an unidentified substance on the surface like he had experienced more than once in shadier establishments.

While he was reading the daily specials a short brunette in her mid thirties came bustling out of the kitchen with a pie in each hand. Even from the distance John could smell the freshly baked crust and warm fruit and he made a mental note to purchase one for Dean. A small peace offering for after the sharp dressing down he was in store for. The Hunter's voice inside John growled its displeasure for such an indulgence, but for once the Father's voice won the argument.

He may have to tear into his kid up one side and back down the other, but he could give the boy some damn pie afterwards if he wanted to.

"What can I get you, handsome?"

John turned his gaze towards the dark haired waitress and easily picked up on her more than professional interest in him. He was used to the attention, having always been a pretty good looking guy. Sometimes his dark good looks came in handy for work when he needed to charm information out of a lonely clerk or librarian. Sometimes it was just annoying or uncomfortable in a life where it was decidedly unhelpful to be remarkable looking and could get you identified easily.

The waitress gifted him with a huge smile and he returned one of his own. Not particularly interested, although it had been awhile since he had enjoyed the company of a woman in his bed. Another time he might have been tempted to indulge in a couple of hours of pleasure with a willing partner, but tonight he needed to get back to his boys, getting Sam fed and making sure that Dean was sleeping as painlessly as possible.

Besides, he preferred blondes. It was easier to see Mary's face on the woman he was having sex with when she was a blonde. It had been easier with Nurse Kate up in Minnesota, sweet and caring and not quite curious enough about his suspicious injuries to really pry the truth out of him. Easier with Tara, a fellow hunter that he could share experiences of The Life, their bellies warm with whiskey as they romped between cheap motel sheets.

"Two meatloaf specials, extra gravy on the potatoes and the heart healthy turkey burger," he answered, warmly enough to ensure prompt service, but not warm enough to invite company. "Thank you, sweetheart."

She threw an appreciative glance at him over her shoulder as she bounced back towards the kitchen doors. John chuckled humorlessly to himself as he absently fingered the gold band on his left hand out of habit. Sixteen and a half years and his Mary's face was still etched sharply in his mind's eye, and he was grateful for that small mercy. Keeping her beautiful face ever present only strengthened his mission, his resolve to bring her justice.

There would be a reckoning one day, he swore it to her with his first breath every single morning. John had resigned himself long ago that he wouldn't make it out of this fight in one piece, and that was okay. That was _fine_ , he accepted it, but the filth that took his Mary would go down with him and would never get it's hands on his boys.

Especially his Sammy. His baby. Whatever It was, John knew his youngest was smack dab in the center of everything and he wouldn't allow his child to be taken. Not while John himself drew breath. 

Bouncy waitress came bounding back over to him, a full pot of coffee in her hand, and she proceeded to pour him a cup without asking. 

"You look like you could use this, Sugar," she said gently, her blue eyes flirting with him. 

John nodded his thanks but didn't encourage conversation, to her disappointment, and she took the hint after a moment and bounced off to refill cups further down the counter. He didn't drink the coffee but he did wrap his hands around the mug to warm them, suddenly feeling cold and weary again, the ever present fear for his sons' safety an icy stabbing in his gut that was only dulled with bloodshed and booze. 

When the bags full of styrofoam containers appeared in front of him he pulled a handful of crumpled bills from his wallet and laid them on the counter. Enough for the dinner for his boys that didn't come from a drive-thru window or a can, a whole cherry guilt pie for his banged up kid, and a decent tip for the flirty lady that was probably just in need of some basic human contact like John occasionally was himself. 

This wasn't the life he wanted. Not for himself, for his Mary or his boys. But it was the life they had, and John was just going to have to play through the pain. 

***

Dad was barely out the motel room door in search of their dinner when Sam threw the blanket off of his bare shoulders and slipped soundlessly into the bathroom. The small room was still damp with condensation from his father's shower and he was careful not to slip on the tiled floor as he adjusted the ancient knobs until a steady steamy spray erupted from the corroded shower head. 

Not wanting to waste precious hot water he quickly kicked off his soiled jeans, boxers and socks and pushed his aching body into the stall. Layer by layer, he felt the sweat and mud slide off his skin as he scrubbed himself with the dwindling bar of generic motel soap. Once in a while Dean would slip him a few bucks to indulge in a good quality body wash that made Sam feel a little more human, but most of the time he had to make do with whatever cheap product the rooms came with. 

One day, Sam wouldn't be made happy with occasional name brand toiletries. One day Sam would be happy because he had a nice house and a nice family to live in it. A good life. A _safe_ life. One where he didn't have to rush scrubbing off graveyard dirt just for a few minutes of privacy in a dingy motel shower to be able to jerk off without his father or brother overhearing this most basic of seventeen year old boy needs like he did now. 

Chest heaving as his blood flow returned to the usual places, he leaned his forehead against the arm he had pressed against the shower wall and caught his breath. He knew Dean wouldn't be waking up any time soon so he didn't feel guilty about soaking himself until the water began to cool down. Only then did he turn the shower off and step out onto the damp bath mat. 

He grabbed the only clean towel left and dried off, promising himself that he would lift one from the housekeeping cart before Dean needed to wash in the morning, wrapping it around his hips and heading back out into the bedroom. A quick glance in his brother's direction assured Sam that Dean was still out cold, not having moved an inch since being bundled into bed by their father. 

Dad would be back soon, assuming there were no bars between the motel and wherever he was picking up dinner, so Sam hurried to pull on his pajama pants and the T-shirt he had been sleeping in the past two nights. Clean and more relaxed he lay on his stomach on his bed, a used copy of _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ clasped in his hands. He was grateful for the book sale that the library at his school in Oklahoma held on the last day of class, thrilled to have had enough cash in his wallet leftover from the lunch money Dean gave him every day to acquire seven books, now jammed into the corners of his duffel. His self imposed summer reading list partially covered with minimal fuss. 

It wasn't hard to engross himself in the novel, even as his stomach rumbled in its demand to be fed. If it had been Dean getting dinner Sam might have dug into their snack stash to satisfy his hunger, because his brother would certainly bring back greasy bags of cholesterol, but Sam grudgingly acknowledged that his dad was more likely to produce a decent meal, so he waited. 

Less than a chapter in Sam heard a key in the door rattle and he jumped up from the bed to take the bulging plastic bags from his father's hands as he made his way inside. There were suddenly several mouth watering aromas filling the stale motel room air and Sam's stomach growled in impatient anticipation as he emptied the containers on the kitchenette table. Dad headed straight to Dean's bed and Sam watched him gently lay his hand on his brother's head and evaluate his condition. 

"He wake up at all?" 

"No, sir," Sam answered, his voice matching the quiet tone of his father's question. 

His father nodded to himself, hesitating a moment at his son's bedside, seemingly reluctant to leave him just yet. Dad sat on the edge of Sam's bed and continued to watch Dean's chest slowly rise and fall in slumber, only tearing his gaze away long enough to indicate the to-go containers. 

"Eat, Sammy," he ordered quietly. "You gotta be starving by now, kiddo." 

Sam didn't deny it, quickly pouncing on the container labeled 'turkey burger' knowing that it was for him. Where Dean couldn't understand why his little brother preferred to avoid a heart attack by age thirty, their Dad usually made an effort to get Sam healthier meals when possible. 

Sitting at the little table, Sam inhaled the sandwich, enjoying the whole grain roll it came on. A far cry from the white, doughy, squashy bread that tasted like pure sugar to him and was the staple of take out sandwiches. The standard diner fries that Sam couldn't ingest anymore were mercifully replaced with carrot and celery sticks and a fresh fruit cup, and Sam threw his father a sincere look of gratitude for the care he had obviously taken when ordering when John eventually joined him at the table. 

While his dad took a forkful of his own meatloaf dinner, Sam felt an annoying prickle in the corner of his eyes as he suppressed a ridiculous and uncomfortable longing to bury himself in his father's arms. Why a stupid thing like a turkey burger made him crave affection, he had no clue. Maybe because it was just one of the many small ways that convinced Sam that John actually knew how to be a good father, even though he was more likely to keep his sons at arms length with barked commands and rebukes instead of praise. 

His dad wouldn't refuse to hug him, he knew that well enough because John had never denied his children affection when they asked for it. But his father also didn't approve of unnecessary weakness, and Sam didn't want to show any. Not over something as silly or ordinary as simple diner food. 

Instead, the two of them passed the meal in total silence with Sam internally warring against a need to connect with his father and John deliberately keeping his mouth shut to avoid anything that might unintentionally provoke an argument with his youngest. When their containers were empty John stuck the one containing a meatloaf dinner for Dean into the small motel fridge. His boy would wake up starving and the food would microwave nicely. 

"Want some pie?" 

Sam looked up from his book to see his father pull a plump pastry from the last bag, a slight twinkle in his eye as he looked over at Dean to see if the magical word woke him. The younger boy laughed softly and shook his head. 

"He'd kill me if there was a piece missing," Sam said seriously, making his father chuckle as well. 

From the far side of the room they heard a quiet whisper. 

_"Pie."_

Dean was frowning in his sleep, moving only slightly before taking a deep sighing breath and beginning to snore again. 

At the table the two other Winchesters laughed as quietly as they could, sharing a rare lighthearted moment before falling into uncomfortable silence again. John cleared his throat, his usual gruff mask back in place. 

"Let me check that wound one more time, kiddo. Then you should hit the rack. It's late." 

A stinging protest died on Sam's lips as he stopped himself from picking a fight. Instead he turned his back to his father and pulled up his shirt, allowing John to assure himself that no further first aid would be required tonight. He felt his dad easing his shirt back down and the gentle touch he was using broke down Sam's defenses and the boy found himself turning and wrapping his arms around his father. He was surprisingly pleased when Dad didn't even hesitate to pull him close, careful to avoid the back injury as he encircled his boy in a strong embrace. 

"You okay, Sammy?" he heard his dad ask with a touch of worry in his voice. 

Sam just nodded into his father's shoulder, his nose buried into the comforting flannel that had been a childhood symbol of safety, security and home. As much as he hated his current life, Sam loved his father and brother, and it was the dark little voice itching in the back of his mind that was petrified that they would no longer love him after he left hunting for good once he was eighteen and could decide for himself. 

Would his father still want to hold him close when Sam turned his back on the family business? 

Thankfully Dad dropped the inquiry and simply hugged him, easing Sam's guilt of the past week of tension and altercations between them. Sam stayed in the safe circle of his father's embrace until he felt the knot in his chest loosen. Only then did he pull away, his face now flushed with embarrassment over his neediness. 

"I'm gonna brush my teeth," he muttered, averting his eyes as he skirted his father's gaze and fled into the bathroom. 

***

Morning was still far off when Dean began to stir in wakefulness. 

As usual Dad was already up, the pullout sofa he had been sleeping on looking barely used as he hunched over thick manila folders of newspaper clippings. The older hunter never slept much, even when his head was sluggish from an evening spent with Jim, Jack or Jose. The oldest Winchester brother woke to the smell of bitter burnt motel coffee from the small machine on the counter, the carafe already almost empty from multiple refills of the stained ceramic mug by John's side as he read. 

Sam blinked into consciousness unwillingly, roused by his brother's movement, and watched, bleary eyed, as Dean struggled to sit upright. His brother's distress propelled him from his own bed to offer an assisting hand, only to be shoved back. 

"Get off me, dude, M'fine." 

Holding an arm around his still painful ribs, Dean struggled briefly to get to his feet and stagger into the bathroom, avoiding both his father and brother attempting to help him. Bracing one hand against the wall, he managed to take a piss without losing his balance, his head still spinning from the pain medication. Which was unfortunate, since it wasn't doing anything for his actual pain at the moment. 

With a few suppressed hisses and grunts he got the shower running and then stripped down, still feeling gross from the night before and annoyed that his father had insisted on medicating him before he could even wash up from the hunt. The hot water was pounding against his skin, loosening his taut muscles and helping his headache to recede slightly. 

By the time he had maneuvered his way out of the stall he felt a million times better even as his completely empty stomach roared to life in protest of his neglect to fill it. There were no clean towels left and he swore colorfully when he was forced to dry off using the one from the previous day. 

Dad had already heated something in the microwave for him and the heavenly smell of meat and potatoes greeted Dean when he eventually stumbled out of the bathroom. Still uncoordinated and cranky, he grunted a semblance of thanks in his father's direction before dropping himself down in one of the hard plastic chairs and ripping into his food. 

"Can you eat that any faster, Son?" his dad teased, saying the words that both parents had admonished him with when his bad table manners were on display. 

"No," Dean replied, around a mouthful of potatoes that threatened to make an unscheduled reappearance on his plate. "No, I cannot." 

John laughed softly, as he was meant to over the little ritual he regularly engaged in with his firstborn. Mary had started it when Dean was just a little guy and couldn't seem to stop eating everything in sight. Over the years it had become a comforting habit, a small silly reminder of happier days. Even at twenty-one, his oldest son still occasionally ate like a child. 

Returning to his latest research John's mouth curved in a small smile as he watched his son eat, making sure the kid didn't face plant into his potatoes. Dean was still clearly tired and disoriented, and when the plate was finally empty it didn't take much to persuade him back into his bed for a few more hours. Sam had fallen back asleep almost immediately when his brother went to shower and now, with them both settled again, John took a brief pause to watch his boys slumber peacefully before resuming his reading. 

***

It was almost approaching lunch hour by the time the boys surfaced again from sleep. During the morning, John had acquired more soap and towels from the housekeeper when he heard the familiar creak of a cart's wheels lumbering down the walkway between room doors. When the Winchesters stayed in a motel the _Do Not Disturb,_ tag remained firmly in place for the duration, lest an unsuspecting maid come across something that could result in all kinds of trouble for them. 

After washing up Sam was summarily booted from the room to fetch breakfast for everyone. He didn't even need to see his brother's shoulders tense to know that his absence would finally give their father the opening to lay into Dean for his reckless actions the evening before. A burning heat rose in Sam's chest, his indignation and fury over his big brother once again taking the blame for a mistake that Sam had made. 

He wasn't going to let it happen this time. 

But Dean being Dean, his big brother knew that Sam was about to fall on his sword before the kid had even opened his mouth. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder and ribs, Dean pulled a wad of cash out of his pants pocket, grabbed Sam by the back of his shirt and literally shoved the younger boy through the door. 

"Out, Sam," he growled, shaking his head slightly in a warning to his little brother to keep his mouth shut. "Dad and I need to talk." 

Sam's attempts to protest were met with a slammed door in his face as he stood helplessly outside on the walkway. Defeated, he sighed heavily, annoyed at his martyr of a brother and more than ashamed of himself for not fighting harder to take his share of the blame. 

It wasn't the first time that Dean had stood between Sam and their father. It wasn't the one hundred and first time either. Sam's big brother was literally the _Wall of Dean_ , shielding Sam from the wrath of John Winchester from the minute Sam learned how to speak, his first word being _No_ to absolutely no one's surprise. A lifelong habit of protection that had only been magnified by Dean's eighteenth birthday when, as an adult, he was no longer subject to the repercussions of a child disobeying his father. 

As he ambled along the cracked sidewalk in the path his father had taken the night before, Sam jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and dropped his chin practically to his chest. His brother had two mandates in his life that he chose to define himself with. 

_Look out for Sammy_ and _Make Dad proud_. 

Sure, Dean had things he enjoyed. A pretty lady. A good meal. Ganking an evil son of a bitch. But these pleasures always took a backseat to the two primal needs. 

_Always_. 

Their entire lives Dean had saved Sam's ass, literally and figuratively, more times that Sam could ever count or repay. And he was doing it again right now. While Sam ran like a coward to the diner to meekly fetch food, Dean was taking a bruising to his ears and his ego, allowing their father to rage over his brother's perceived failures and taking a chunk out of Dean's self respect in the process. 

Sam hated his father for never hesitating to belittle Dean for his failures. He hated Dean for his constant willingness to be made less than. And he hated _himself_ most of all for doing nothing to stop it. 

Sure enough, by the time Sam returned to their room, laden down with more styrofoam containing enough animal products to horrify PETA, his father and brother were sitting at the kitchenette table in silence. John bent, as usual, over his never ending pile of research materials and Dean scooping up large bites of cherry pie in his mouth. 

Outwardly, his brother looked fine, casually leaning back in his chair while he ate, throwing Sam a smirk as he dumped the bags on the table. But there was a tightness to Dean's eyes that only an adoring little brother could detect, a sagging of his broad shoulders that screamed proof that Dad had torn a strip off of Dean's confidence. 

Tomorrow, Sam would beg a ride to the local library. Hopefully to use their computer where he could surreptitiously begin a research project of his own. He had one last year in high school to do what he could to earn a place at a university. A place where he could leave this world of hurt, blood and pain behind. 

_He was getting out._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Young Sam might seem a little out of character here, but keep in mind that he's still very young and emotional. The warm fuzzy side that John displays towards him is certainly realistic considering that he cries in almost episode he has with his boys.


	3. July 2000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean starts getting suspicious

Ultimately, it's the conversation with Jim Murphy that really convinces Dean that they are in danger of losing Sam.

Dean ended the call and tossed his cell onto the empty seat next to him. Like a balm on burned skin, he enjoyed his sporadic conversations with Sonny. The kindhearted ex-con was one of the few civilians that had earned Dean's respect over the years, and was important enough to Dean that he always made sure that his former caretaker had a current number to call.

Whether for help, or just to shoot the breeze and catch up.

So far Sonny had never needed to send out the bat signal for their particular brand of assistance for which Dean was grateful, not wanting the boys at the home to ever have to deal with any of the Winchesters' usual playmates. Despite the fact that Sonny had always been supportive in his own way, Dean was reasonably sure that his old friend didn't actually believe in any of the supernatural stuff anyway.

Which was fine. Sometimes it was nice to just make conversation with someone who cared without having to talk shop.

Dean didn't share these conversations with either his father or brother. Not that he was under any delusions about Dad's ignorance of them. John Winchester was always laser focused on any outside influences on his boys, which was why despite being raised in the life his kids knew very few other hunters.

Dean was positive that there was no way his father didn't know about the occasional calls on his cell either to or from the area code where he had left his firstborn for two months.

Anyone who thought that John hadn't spent those two months hovering in the near vicinity of Hurleyville, tense as a predator ready to pounce, while he taught his son a lesson on money management, responsibility and _not fucking getting caught_ , didn't know Dean's father.

 _At all_.

And Dean had wanted to stay. Wanted it like he had never really wanted anything else besides having his mother back. For the first time since... _ever_...Dean had been given a reprieve from the heavy responsibility of his little brother's care.

Sure, he felt guilty about thinking like that. Guilty in a way that had torn at him enough to make him puke his guts out when he let himself feel it completely. In the darkness of the bunk room, lying awake in his warded bed among the other boys, Dean's mind had warred with frenzied worry over where Sammy was at the moment.

Was he with Dad? With Uncle Bobby? Or one of their other occasional guardians? Was he alone in a motel room, sick with worry about where his father and brother were? Was he safe? Was he hurt? Was he hungry?

_Did he even miss Dean at all?_

In the break of day, with the sunlight chasing away the dark shadows that plagued him, Dean could push his lingering fears to the back of his mind. There was work to be done on the farm and he found himself enjoying physical exertion that didn't involve his continuing education into becoming a trained killer.

Even at school he was able to relax. Less guarded without the near constant hyper vigilance of being alert for any threat to his little brother's safety in a strange place. Dean knew he could handle himself so he didn't worry for his own safety. Didn't have that ever present tension that took his focus away from lectures and assignments.

He did well in school there. Not just well but _flourished_. For the first time he actually got what always had his little brother so enthused about education. Math and Sciences came easy to him and Dean quickly soared to the tops of his classes. For once getting praise for his academic endeavors instead of dismissal.

He loved being on the wrestling team and sparring just for _fun_ and no other reason. Making friends with the other boys on his team who saw his strength as an asset. Not something to be scared of, like the students at the dozens of schools he had attended had always viewed the new kid, subconsciously moving out of the way as Dean strode by.

He loved walking down the hallway with his arm around Robin. Spending the evenings after dinner and chores with her on the couch in Sonny's living room. Her long slender fingers softly strumming the guitar strings as she sang painfully beautiful ballads in her gently lilting voice.

Sonny had reminded Dean a lot of his father and maybe that's why he had taken a shine to him initially. Like his dad, Sonny was a flawed man with violence in his past. Although the two of them might have chosen different paths to deal with that, Dean saw that each of them worked hard to save people, leaving the world a little better place than it would be without them.

When Dad had eventually returned to retrieve him, finally ready to bestow the largesse of his forgiveness on his wayward son, Dean had wanted to stay ensconced in his new found life. A life where he could just be a stupid high school kid with no greater worries than exams and acne.

But one look out the window, seeing his kid brother in the backseat of the Impala, young, vulnerable, and already at constant odds with their father, and Dean knew there was no choice at all.

So even now, years later, Dean didn't make his friendship with Sonny obvious. To this day Sammy didn't know the real story behind his big brother's absence during that time and as far as Dean was concerned he would never know. He would never admit to his little brother that there had been a time when he contemplated abandoning him, regardless of how incredibly brief that thought had been.

Dean would never randomly confess to Sam that his gung-ho hunter of a brother had once wanted normalcy too. Not that Dean wouldn't admit it if he was asked directly.

He might not care and share every aspect of his life with his family but he wouldn't lie to them either.

It was actually hard for Dean to hold back information from the other Winchesters. Unlike his father and brother he didn't keep many secrets from them. Dad had always kept his boys on a need-to-know basis and Dean accepted it. He didn't like it, but he accepted it as part of the way his father ran things. Dad was the C.O. of the Winchester Army. Dean and Sam only grunts who were expected to fall in line and do as they were told.

Whatever it took to get the job done.

As for Sam, the older the younger Winchester brother grew the more he looked, sounded and acted like their father. In fact, most of the time these days Dean often wondered why his parents hadn't named his little brother _John Winchester, Jr_ and have just been done with it.

Sammy rebelled against learning everything their father tried to teach them regularly, but on the subject of keeping secrets Dean's little brother was becoming a master second only to John himself.

And didn't that just figure.

It was Sam's stubborn nature that was responsible for the empty seat in Dean's car right now. After a dozen arguments between his father and brother over Sam's enthusiasm, or more specifically his lack thereof, in helping them research the last hunt, Dad had decided that Sam needed a refresher course on responsibility, professionalism and chain of command.

Normally Dean would have tried to intervene, if only because he didn't want to be the one dealing with a pissy Sammy after the kid had spent the morning cooped up in the pickup truck while Dad gave him the Hunter's Riot Act. More than once after arriving at their destination following one of these pep talks Sam would storm out of the truck spitting nails and spoiling for a fight, usually with Dean as the nearest available target.

But Sammy had been acting a little more squirrely lately. More secretive and jumpy, and Dean was all out of patience with the kid these days too. Not that his little brother didn't have a few valid points. Dad was driven, no doubt, and military disciplined in a way that his sons, having never been to war themselves, were not quite at the level yet.

That didn't mean that the whiny emo little bitch didn't need to be taken down a peg or two at times. As anyone in their immediate acquaintance could attest, having been given front row seats to the long running Broadway performance of _101 Reasons Why My Life Sucks Out Loud by Little Sammy Winchester_.

Dean could see the figures of his father and brother ahead of him in the truck's cab as they drove along the interstate towards Blue Earth. Every once in a while John's right hand would make a jabbing motion in the air, signaling what Dean knew to be his dad's emphasis on a particular lesson he was trying to impart. In the passenger seat Sam sat, usually facing away from their father, his shoulders stiffening and slumping in equal measures.

Peachy, Dean thought to himself, already resigned to the upcoming in-person bitch-fest. Just peachy.

He didn't have long to wait after he ended his call with Sonny. Less than thirty minutes later Dad turned off the main road and headed towards the parking lot of a little greasy spoon with a sign out front that promised _Real Home Cooking_.

It should have been a sign to keep them driving. The more sketchy places always tried to use warm and fuzzy descriptors to entice unsuspecting travelers into their dining rooms, only to then offer mediocre fare that had spent too much time under warming lights and presented with the tired, grudging service of wait staff who would rather not be bothered.

Dean had done some _Real Home Cooking_ in his life as well. But just because the Mac & Cheese with Marshmallow Fluff had been cooked in their _home_ , it didn't mean that anyone besides his weird little brother should want to eat it.

Sam had already hopped out of the truck by the time Dean swung the Impala into an empty space a few cars away. Grabbing his cellphone from the seat at he exited his sweet ride he saw his father standing hunched at his little brother's side. Dad was leaning close to Sam's ear and talking low, a cautionary hand on the back of his brothers neck, and Dean inhaled a deep sigh because all signs indicated that their conversation was clearly going to spill over into the restaurant.

Inside they are shown to a round booth towards the back at John's request because Dad didn't step a foot into a strange place without scoping out the room for potential threats and quickest exits. He sits first and Dean slides in after him, attempting to put a little distance between his father and brother at least for as long as their late breakfast can last. Sammy reluctantly follows, slinking into the booth next to Dean with all the attitude a teenager could muster and ignoring the menus that have been plopped down in front of them.

"Two coffees, for us," Dad orders, indicating himself and Dean, "and orange juice for him," he finishes, nodding towards Sam.

The waitress says nothing as she jots it down on her pad and is already trotting towards the kitchen before Sam can object or correct her. Instead he glowers at the table in front of him and Dean can feel his brother's body tense next to his.

John's eyebrows are drawn together in annoyance as he stares at his scowling son. He begins to form a sharp rebuke and then stops himself, already weary after an entire morning in the truck lecturing the kid.

"You've been drinking nothing but coffee all morning, kiddo," he reminds Sam, in a voice that while not exactly gentle is at least calmer than Dean expected. "It's a researching evening, not an overnight stakeout."

Sam doesn't respond, either out of petulance or anger. Either way Dean is grateful for the lack of complaint that would ignite the powder keg he is sitting between. When the waitress comes back with the drinks Sam ignores the juice, _as well as everybody else_ , as he chews the nail of his pinkie finger. A habit Dean has been trying to break him of since he was six years old.

To lessen the tension Dean turns on his fullest megawatt smile as he orders his usual greasy bacon cheeseburger and artery clogging chili cheese fries, cocking a playful smile at his father which stops John from immediately protesting his boy's habitually unhealthy diet.

"Short stack and a veggie omelet," John orders, gifting the tired waitress with a smile of his own before turning patiently to his pouting younger son. He's not exactly feeling guilty about his executive decision in ordering the juice but he'll put extra effort into into calling a ceasefire with his kid.

"What do you want to eat, Sammy?"

"Not hungry," Sam mutters, pushing the menu away and slumping further into the back cushion of the booth without even the barest attempt at civility.

John takes a deep breath and frowns, counts to ten in his head.

"He'll have what I'm having," he says firmly, ignoring the affronted huff from his youngest as he gathers the menus together and hands them back to the their server.

John desperately needs food and caffeine after the long drive and his patience with his children is rapidly slipping to a place where it will become impossible to rein his temper back in if they don't stop pushing his buttons. He just wants a quiet meal with his kids for Christ's sake.

"And _he_ will have a side of steamed broccoli with his heart attack special," the perturbed father continues, indicating Dean with a pointed look whose head then jerks up in surprise. "Thank you, sweetheart."

The waitress says nothing as she adds the last order to her pad, used to bickering families with moody teenagers. She grabs the menus, warms up the coffees and darts off again leaving the uncomfortable atmosphere of the round booth in her wake.

"What did I do?" Dean asks indignantly, but is quickly silenced by his father's dark frown.

"I thought I told you to stow that attitude outside, Sammy," John rumbles darkly.

Dean closes his eyes in resignation because he hasn't even had half a cup of coffee yet, shit is already starting to brew, and now he has to eat rabbit food.

"Why?" Sam snaps, sharp enough to be heard by the couple in the booth next to them who give them judging stares. "Because I'm capable of ordering my own beverage? Because I don't want to eat whatever science experiment they're growing in this place?"

"You mind your tone, boy," John growls, pointing his finger at his mouthy son to impart the message that a line is being crossed. His boys haven't been raised to be disrespectful. "We've already had this discussion once, today."

"So it's a crime now to avoid salmonella?" Sam persists, every bit as stubborn as his father.

John is like a cobra about to strike, now leaning halfway across into Dean's personal space with a murderous look in his eyes that promises nothing good for the youngest Winchester.

"If I tell you it's time to eat, you eat," John says sharply. "We aren't going to descend on Pastor Jim like a plague of locusts and eat him out of house and home."

John's eyes are dark and snapping as he stares down his youngest, and when Sam doesn't capitulate he ups the ante.

"Maybe you need a reminder of respect for my orders and appropriate behavior when we're in public or guests in someone's house?"

Sitting in the eye of this approaching storm, Dean sighs and realizes that whatever has been said in the truck is about to come to a head in this small diner, and apparently he seems to be the only one remembering that they don't need this amount of attention. Dad doesn't take kindly to orders not being followed, and when Sammy digs his heels in over something he'd rather get whipped than back down. No matter how stupid the fight.

When Sam doesn't answer the direct question he's given, choosing instead to hold his ground and stare at a crack in the table's formica, Dean feels his father start to move from the booth. John has and will drag a disobedient son outside to the car for discipline if he's pushed too far. Dean knows this and Sam does too, although the youngest Winchester has a terribly bad habit of forgetting the fact. On his other side Dean feels his little brother involuntarily flinch but he doesn't back down.

It's about to get very very ugly and Dean is simply done with the bullshit from both of them. Well experienced in his role of the Winchester family cooler, Dean decides it's time for the tried and true method of distract/deflect/diverge.

Bringing his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose and rub his eyes, he groans pitifully.

"Could you guys knock it off for a while, please? My freakin' head is killing me." _Distract_

John is still glaring daggers at his youngest but the underlying current of misery in Dean's voice catches his attention and his fatherly instinct kicks in, grudgingly overtaking his annoyance.

"What's the matter with your head, kiddo?" John asks, shooting one more heated glance at Sam now curled fingers before taking in the pained expression on his older son's face.

"Honestly, Dad?" Dean responds, rubbing his face again and gearing himself up for an award winning performance. "Too many beers last night while I was hustling." _Deflect_

As Dean intends, his father immediately launches into a scathing tirade that makes his irritation with his youngest pale in comparison.

"What?" John demands, his eyes burning with a mix of anger and worry as he turns his full attention to his eldest. "You know better than that, Dean! That's a rookie move!! You know better than to let your attention to your surroundings get too impaired when you hustle."

"I know, Dad," Dean mumbles, eyes cast down with just the right balance of shame and guilt. "The mark had a sober friend. He was watching my intake. I just lost count. M'sorry."

Head down and eyes averted, Dean lets his father fume for another few seconds before he rubs his temples. Eventually, his dad's stronger protective side wins out and the dressing down is over. Before John's attention can get refocused on his little brother, Dean makes a preemptive strike of the ultimate sacrifice.

"Would you mind if Sammy drives the Impala the rest of the way?" he asks his father as he squints from phantom head pain. "I could really use a nap." _Diverge_

The request takes seems to take John aback because he has seen his son drive the car while bleeding all over the black leather seat. Dean is either seriously feeling ill or he is trying that desperately to keep the peace. Not particularly fooled, John nods his consent because he's not actually in the mood for more confrontation with his youngest either.

"Sammy, go get your brother some Tylenol out of the truck," he orders, going along with the ruse if it allows them to have a quiet family meal.

While Sam darts outside Dean squirms because he's pretty sure he's about to get called out but John just drinks his coffee and pulls out his journal, ignoring his son's discomfort. He doesn't say anything to Dean until Sam is back with the pill bottle, instructing Dean to take two and watching carefully as his oldest swallows them down before returning to his notes.

Dean notices that Sam is trying very hard to suppress his excitement over the prospect of driving and getting away from their father for a few hours and becomes mildly irritated that the kid is going to be rewarded for acting like a little asshole, but then he feels the affectionate nudge Sam's knee gives his own under the table thanking him for defusing the argument and he sighs. Relief superseding his irritation.

When the food comes Dean is starving and salivating but he knows that his father will call bullshit on his inability to drive if he tears into his meal. He forces himself to pick at the awesome smelling burger, even though he wants to devour it, the fries and, possibly, the plate itself.

Grumpy, he scowls at the small dish of broccoli until inspiration strikes.

"I'm gonna get this all to go, okay Dad?"

John doesn't allow his kids to waste food and Dean knows it. He can wait a little bit longer until his father and brother finish their meals, and then he will be free to inhale his own in the comfort of his car. The broccoli can have an unfortunate accident with a trash can when they get to Pastor Jim's.

John doesn't even look up from his plate, running a large forkful of pancakes through the puddle of syrup.

"Sure thing, kiddo." Slight pause. "Eat the broccoli so it doesn't stink up the car and we'll box up the rest for you later."

Dean's eyes go wide with surprise, only to be met with his father's knowing stare as he realizes that he is busted. Resigned, he pulls the dish of limp green vegetables towards him and obediently chokes it down under John's watchful eyes.

_Sonuvabitch_

In the end it's worth it when he sees his little brother digging into his own food, his earlier aversion to eating gone.

They're back on the road twenty minutes later, John leading in the Sierra as Sam carefully cruises behind at the Impala's wheel. As soon as they pull out of the parking lot Dean rips open the to-go bag and snorkels his way through his delayed lunch, not the least bit deterred by the fact it has grown cold at this point.

"Thanks."

Dean looks up from his burger and Sam is smiling gratefully at him.

"You so owe me, bitch," he says around a mouthful of limp fries. "Eyes on the road."

Sam laughs, a carefree happy sound, relaxed for the first time since they woke up this morning and he was forced to spend hours captive while his father lectured. It's not that he's not used to his father pointing out his many inadequacies as a hunter. To Sam, it feels like he's been disappointing his father for years.

Dean has always been the perfect son. Attentive, responsible, respectful and obedient, and still their father is critical and hard on him. So if that's what John thinks of his good soldier, what could he possibly really think about Sam?

He gets jealous sometimes. Really he does. Because he and his father don't actually have a lot of common ground or mutual interests despite Sam's secret wish that they did. Dad and Dean have always been their own little two man team, happy to spend hours together handling weapons, working on the cars, running, hunting, shooting, sparring.

It's enough to make Sam feel like the Odd Man Out most of the time. He will never feel the call of their life as it is. He just doesn't have the taste for it. Never will. He only slows them down with his disinterest and lesser skill.

They will be better off without him when he leaves. He's sure of it.

Dean looks up from his burger long enough to suss out the fallout from Sam and Dad's latest entanglement.

"How much trouble are you in?"

Sam's mouth twists into a frown and his eyes narrow briefly, his father's dressing down reverberating in his head.

"Double our cardio drill for a week. And I have to field strip and clean the entire arsenal tonight."

Dean lets out a low whistle, because that's harsh, even for Dad. He contemplates what to say that won't get Sam's back up further or undermine their father's authority over them. Either way he would be screwed so in the end he just gives his brother a sympathetic smile.

"Sorry, kiddo."

Sam shrugs, because that's just his life. As much as he wants to rail and scream right now, he won't. His brother has already gone the distance to separate him from Dad. Dean will probably also let him get off easily with the drills since Dad will make him count Sam out. He might even help Sam with the guns if Dad is too distracted talking to Jim to notice.

Dean demolishes his food in record time. Bagging up the trash and finally leaning back in the seat, surprisingly relaxed even though Sam knows it's killing him that someone else is driving. To keep his brother's mind occupied he suggests a game of _I Spy_ to pass the time.

They haven't played the game in a while and the idea pleases Dean in a way that Sam doesn't really understand. They've spent a million hours passing away the miles engaged in distractions like this. Two restless boys trapped in a car with only a preoccupied father and each other for company.

Sam had always assumed it was for his benefit. A way to busy a chatty little brother without annoying their dad with endless questions that didn't always have a happy answer. Once he was older Sam began to bury his nose in a book for the long drives, releasing his big brother from the chore of entertaining him.

Now he wonders who the games were for.

As they cruise down the two lane asphalt, they play. And if Dean is stretching the rules using an unfair advantage of automotive knowledge, Sam doesn't call him on it. He's got things on his mind and wants his brother in a good mood when they talk about it.

"D'you think Dad would let me spend the school year with Pastor Jim?"

Dean's head snaps back like he's been slapped and his eyes blink rapidly. He throws his brother a disbelieving look, trying to figure out whether or not the kid is serious.

"Okay, Random. Where did that come from?"

Sam grips the steering wheel tighter, his knuckles going white as he shrugs.

"I dunno," he answers, attempting to be casual and failing. "It's just a thought. Might make it easier to hunt if he didn't have to worry about dragging me from school to school."

Dean snorts and shakes his head. _Seriously. This kid_

"I'm sorry. Have you met our father?"

Sam doesn't have to look to know that his brother is giving him the 'my brother got dropped on his head as a baby...repeatedly...' stare.

"Sammy, Dad isn't going to leave us behind at Pastor Jim's. Or Bobby's. Or Caleb's. Or anybody else's place," Dean reminds him, attempting to be reasonable and gentle in the face of his little brother's obvious dumbness today.

There is a slight hesitation as Sam's mouth puckers into a frown, hands tightening even more into the stranglehold he has on the wheel.

"Not _us_ , Dean," he says quietly, avoiding his brother's shocked face. "Just me."

A rising tide of hurt edges up in Dean's throat for the briefest of seconds before he manages to choke it back down. He takes a beat in an attempt to convince himself that Sam couldn't have mean that like it sounded.

"Just you?" he asks, struggling to keep his voice calm.

Sam risks a quick peek at his brother's face but Dean is staring straight ahead to the road, revealing nothing.

"Eyes on the road, Sam."

Sam snaps his attention back to his father's truck ahead of them and clears his throat, knowing that without Dean on his side he'll never convince his father to leave him behind. He needs this. No decent school will give him a shot if he can't stabilize his school records.

"Dad needs you to keep hunting with him," Sam begins, trying to sound reasonable while he exploits one of his brother's weaknesses. "And I'm not a kid anymore. You don't need to stay behind and watch me all the time. It's not fair to you."

For his own peace of mind, Dean chooses to believe that that is what Sam meant. That it's his concern for his big brother's happiness that has him thinking about being left behind alone, and not because he wants to distance himself from Dean as much as from their father.

The alternative is too painful to contemplate. Especially since Dean himself had more than once chosen family over personal desires.

"There's no way Dad will leave you behind that long anywhere without me, Sam," Dean replies, unwilling to expound further into territory that might be harmful to their brotherhood.

There's truth and finality to Dean's simple statement of fact. Sam knows it. He may not want to admit it but he knows it. For a brief second his hopes and plans slip a little further from his grasp but he subconsciously racks his shoulders back as he begins to ponder other alternatives.

Engrossed in his own thoughts he doesn't realize that his brother sees his tell, Dean's mouth stretching into a grim line as he turns away to stare off into the distance.

They don't speak until Dad signals for them to pull over for a restroom break. Aside from a quick question about the state of Dean's fake headache their father doesn't say much and he also doesn't demand Sam's return to the truck. Freed from obligation to keep up the ruse Dean slides back behind the wheel with Sammy as reluctant shotgun.

Approaching the exit for Blue Earth, Minnesota, Dean catches a glimpse of the hulking, whimsical statue coming into his view. A familiar sight since childhood, he can't help the corny jingle that came unbidden into his mind.

Too many hours left alone to their own devices in motel rooms with an inquisitive little brother that literally never shut the hell up. So sue him. Sometimes the television was the device of last resort for a kid who just needed a few moments of peace from the constant chattering of an overactive little brother.

_Up in the valley of the Jolly Green Giant_

Over and over again, the commercial for canned vegetables would play between episodes of _Thundercats_ and every other ridiculous program that Sammy could be persuaded to watch and give his big brother two solid minutes of peace between the endless questions.

Dean had dreaded seeing it start, knowing that his little brother would begin to squeal in delight as if expecting Pastor Jim to walk through the door, only to be disappointed when Dean had to remind him that they were far from the actual statue that resided in Blue Earth.

Sitting in the passenger seat oblivious to their surroundings, Sammy's nose was deep in a book as they drove, their previous discussion long discarded.

His current choice was _The Old Man and the Sea_ , and Dean had rolled his eyes when seeing it pulled from his kid brother's slightly ratty backpack. Another selection from the long established tradition that the little geek imposed his own reading list for the summer.

As if their father didn't already have them reading a metric fuck ton of lore books in the first place.

For some reason Sam seemed to be on a Hemingway kick this summer and Dean made a mental note to find a book store in town while they were visiting. If the kid insisted on wearing his eyes out by age eighteen then it was time to introduce the boy to some real reading material, like Vonnegut.

The looming green figure was growing larger as he followed his dad's black Sierra towards one of the few places they had actually spent significant time in growing up. As children, Pastor Jim's rectory had been almost as much a home as the Impala and both the Winchester brothers had fond memories of their stays there.

The large, leaf toga wearing man had always been a gatekeeper of sorts.

A sign that they were minutes away from the neat and cozy rectory with its soft beds that were always crisp and clean smelling. A casserole unfailingly bubbling in the oven made by one of the many church ladies who had deemed it their Christian duty to keep Pastor Jim's waistline expanding. The rec room with its numerous shelves filled with toys and games occupying restless children after services.

Dean couldn't help the smirk on his face as they drove past the visitors entrance, the twinkle in his eyes a combination of happy childhood nostalgia and the mirth of youthful indiscretion.

_Then_

_Four Years Ago…._

Dean was seventeen and feeling his oats.

Along with Sam he had been left behind at Jim's while their father and Caleb, one of the few other hunters John trusted, set off in pursuit of a Vetala in the area near the Florida Everglades. Expecting to be gone a couple of weeks, hunting a monster that preferred young men as prey, John had once again entrusted his sons to his old friend and firmly forbidding his oldest from joining him.

Dean's bruised pride had him mouthing off to John and questioning orders. An occurrence even more rare than Sammy agreeing to move without throwing a tantrum.

Hurt by what he perceived to be his father's lack of faith in his blossoming hunting skills, Dean had lashed out in an unprecedented way and as a result found himself grounded for the duration of his father's absence. Sentenced to attend Pastor Jim's evening bible study classes with his driving privileges revoked.

John and Caleb were taking Caleb's much more utilitarian Jeep in case their chase took them into less forgiving marshy terrain, leaving the Impala, jet black and gleaming, to sit in Jim's side yard, mocking Dean's inability to drive her anywhere.

It didn't help his mood that Sammy, the little suck up, was more than willing to sit through bible study. Happy to spend evenings around normal people doing normal things and rationalizing his enthusiasm by declaring that the Good Book was a huge resource for obscure lore that might come in handy some day.

Dean had been practically spitting fire when his little brother made that pronouncement. Sam had to be dragged by his floppy hair kicking and screaming to do research normally. The little bitch was trying to get under his skin on purpose and for once Dean felt like punching his baby brother.

It wasn't like they had a choice in the matter. Dad said they were going, so going they were.

Faced with his father's abandonment and his little brother's holier than thou attitude, Dean was grudgingly dragged into the community hall after dinner that first night, horrified when the vacant seat to his right was suddenly occupied by a stout middle aged woman with hair shaped like a football helmet, an odor of overcooked cabbage clinging to her like incense, and judgment in her eyes.

For two evenings in a row Dean slumped dejectedly in his chair. Sammy chipper and curious to his left and Cabbage Lady to his right making pointed insulting remarks under her breath and throwing him the occasional glare that clearly stated that Dean's spirituality was sorely lacking.

Dean hated religious hypocrites.

If it hadn't been for his long time affection and healthy respect for the good Pastor he would have told Helmet Head to cram it where the sun don't shine, but as it was Jim was a good friend of their father's and had always been unfailingly kind to both of the Winchester boys, so he kept his mouth shut.

It was on the third evening that everything changed.

As the boys walked across the parking lot towards the community hall after dinner Pastor Jim had informed them that it was Youth Night, and with a poorly concealed smile had hinted that they might have a few surprises waiting for them inside. Surprised they were.

On more than one occasion the boys had been left with Jim for long periods of time. Enough time to meet and get casually friendly with some of the local kids. One stay had even involved them being enrolled in the local school for a few months when Dean was thirteen and John had been banged up enough to need real bed rest.

It had been the one other time that Dean had been reluctant to leave a school and join their father back on the road until his time at Sonny's place.

Sam had no trouble recognizing some old friends from that stay and he hadn't even bothered to say goodbye to Dean and Jim before sprinting off to join them. Dean had been more relieved than hurt by his brother's quick abandonment because although he loved Sammy the kid was really getting on his nerves lately.

Dean had made friends, good friends, for the first time. They were troubled kids from dysfunctional homes, but considering how Dean and his family lived he never looked down on them with the typical disdain that most of the upper middle class community that made up the parish had. With Sammy well watched at Jim's house, Dean had finally felt a few moments of breathing space where he could just be a kid, and the ragtag bunch of social outsiders had embraced him as one of their own.

Now, stepping into the side meeting room where the evening's attendees of his age group were assembling, a warm wave of nostalgia washed over him as he slowly identified the maturing faces of old friends. Recognizing Dean immediately, they came barreling towards him, shoving and punching him like most guys that age do in greeting each other and happier now he felt some of the weight lifted from his head as they started catching up.

Renny, the unofficial leader, had a wad of cash in his pocket, proudly telling Dean that he ran errands for a local drug dealer. Only seventeen years old, he was paying his mother's rent and for the first time in years they weren't on the verge of being evicted. Dean was profoundly sad that this was the direction he was choosing to go because Renny was smart, _Sammy smart_ , and with a little encouragement from his alcoholic mom or a teacher that gave just a little damn he could go places.

RJ's older brother was now at Duke with a full athletic scholarship and you could see the pride in RJ's eyes as he told Dean about it. RJ was going to try for one too, and Dean got the impression that his days hanging out with the others might be numbered.

Dennis was a good natured stoner who kept everyone laughing with his weird humor and willingness to make an ass of himself. Dennis was a perpetual foster kid, in and out of group homes. He had a kind heart and never said a bad thing about anyone. He spent time at Jim's because it kept him from getting beat on at his current group home and the food was good. Feeling protective, Dean made a mental note to pay a visit to Dennis' tormentors.

The sixteen to eighteen age group was theoretically being led by Ms. Purvis, a woman who owned the local flower shop, dressed in twin sets and pearls and had a nose that was permanently raised in the air. Renny assured Dean that she really only came for the gossip. After passing out worksheets that she never collected, she abandoned their group for coffee and pastry in the community hall kitchen with the other women.

Shutting the door and cranking open a side window, Dennis threw Dean half a pack of Kools and he shook one out, lighting it up and taking a drag. He coughed a little because it had been forever since his last one and the boys laughed like crazy at him.

Under his father's watchful eye Dean could never allow himself to become addicted to them, and if it had been Sammy lighting up he would have wrung the kid's neck. It was a social thing more or less. Dean didn't really like cigarettes. They tasted awful and interfered with his running. You couldn't run from Wendigos with lungs full of black tar.

Besides, it's not like he could hide it once Dad got back. John could smell it on his kid ten blocks away and had once threatened to make Dean smoke an entire pack in one shot if he ever caught his oldest having another one. But Dad was in Florida. 

Without Dean. 

So screw him.

Finally relaxed and enjoying himself, Dean was lounging on the chair closest to the storage closet, his stomach a little queasy from too much tuna noodle casserole and nicotine, so he was taking small sips of a Pepsi grabbed from the main hall's buffet table hoping that it would keep him from puking in front of his friends.

There was a small group of latecomers making their way through the door and Renny jumped up and trotted over to meet them. Smiling like a fox he threw an arm around a petite blonde, another girl following them closely.

The girl standing slightly behind Renny was the closest thing to perfection Dean's seventeen year old eyes had ever seen.

Swirls of long black hair snaking their way down her low cut shirt, giving just a peek of the swell of her perky breasts. Her shirt was tucked into skin tight black jeans that emphasized all the curves in all the right places and he felt his groin ache and his breath catch.

But it was her eyes that did him in. Ice blue and shining with mischief, he couldn't stop leering at her like some sick perv in a trench coat.

She giggled, showing small even white teeth inside her rosebud red lips, shiny with gloss, and Dean was sure his face blushed nine shades of crimson from getting caught when she winked at him. The other guys were snickering at his obvious infatuation and general dumbness but she didn't seem to pay any attention to them. She just kept smiling as she slowly walked over with the strangest look on her face.

Almost amused and expectant, she stood directly in front of him like there was a joke being shared that Dean wasn't in on and he practically had a heart attack when she parted her legs, straddled his hips and sat down on his lap. She leaned over slowly, giving him ringside seats for ogling her full round breasts and he could smell a mix of ocean and rain coming off of her. It was intoxicating.

"Long time no see, stranger," she whispered, her breath sending a warm wave of air into his ear, brushing her lips against Dean's left cheek before nipping his earlobe.

_Jesus. Christ._

Being a guy that age is hard enough when you're just sitting in class. Your trouser snake was regularly possessed by the devil, doing whatever it wanted whenever it wanted on a good day. Right now Dean's was already painfully trying to escape his jeans and the ear bite didn't help.

He was counting backwards, wordlessly reciting the Latin alphabet, mentally reviewing the entire White Sox roster and going over Trig homework from his last school in an effort to not explode like Old Faithful and completely humiliate himself.

She clearly sensed his struggle and laughed again, moving her hips slowly to press harder against him. Dean was losing the battle, squeezing his eyes tightly in an effort to think of something, _anything_ , that would take his attention away from this beautiful and sadistic creature currently killing him.

A fleeting thought of the influence of Sirens got distractedly discarded by an especially insistent thrust of her hips.

She leaned over closely again and nuzzled his ear. Her breath warm and moist and Dean groaned as he felt his resistance slipping.

"Don't you remember me, Dean?"

The question surprised him because who could possibly forget perfection? So he opened his eyes with his mental focus thankfully redeployed as he searched her face for some recognizable trait.

She pulled back slightly and Dean scrutinized every feature of her with not even a tiny clue which made his hunter-in-training brain absolutely crazy. She made a fake pouting face, those perfectly kissable lips pursed and glossy, while the guys laughed at both his confusion and his aching groin but he had nothing.

Just as he was about to tell them off for messing with him she reached up and began twirling a lock of her hair with her right index finger, rattling an old memory from the dusty back corners of his memory.

"Beth?"

It couldn't be. But just as sure as Dean knew his own name he knew it was her. She giggled again, clearly pleased that he had finally placed her, and she leaned over once more and kissed him gently on the mouth.

Her lips tasted like strawberries.

"Good boy," she praised in a quiet breathy voice as she slowly climbed off of his lap.

He sat up straighter in the chair, attempting to discreetly adjust himself as she starting talking with the other guys. Face flushed and head was spinning, he blinked his eyes in confusion because this was definitely not the Beth that he remembered.

They had met the summer Dean was twelve, once again temporarily in Blue Earth while John took a few of the more dangerous hunts, comfortable that his sons were safe and protected. Thrown together at Jim's vacation bible school and assigned to be study buddies because her last name was alphabetically ahead of his on the attendance roll.

She was a tomboy then. Straight angles, skinned knees and hair always in a messy ponytail. Her second hand clothes often had small stains either from the previous owner or because Beth could get down and dirty at play as good as any boy in school. Her mom liked to drink. Her dad was gone. Mom had lots of boyfriends and sometimes they hit her. Sometimes they hit Beth too.

Beth came to bible school cut and bruised on several occasions and Dean once overheard one church mom tell another that it was probably the reason Beth played so aggressively, so that she could blame rough housing for the abuse she was getting at home. He remembered being angry about that. That these good, _Christian_ women could gossip about an abused child but not act to help her.

Dean's protective nature had him itching for payback to whoever was hurting her, even at only twelve years old. He knew hand to hand combat already. Could handle knives and a shotgun too if he needed to, but he couldn't risk getting into trouble when Sammy still needed his protection more.

He wasn't entirely helpless. Because Dean's charm also worked on reformed and faithful clergymen Beth was often invited to spend time at the rectory, away from booze addled mothers and abusive boyfriends, and for a while the bruises and cuts were fewer and farther between.

Dean hadn't seen Beth since that summer. A few months later at Christmas Sammy would find Dad's journal in their seedy motel room in Broken Bow. With the innocence of his younger son shattered, John had decided to regularly start bringing the boys along on hunts instead of parking them in Blue Earth every few months.

Until the next year.

With Dad recovering from a bad encounter with a rawhead, Dean had looked for her at school but a change of address had her zoned elsewhere. Then not too long after their arrival they had been on their way again and sadly Dean hadn't really thought anymore about her.

He was thinking about her now though.

She was a fully developed seventeen year old girl and he couldn't take his eyes off of her as she moved around the room with the fluid ease of someone confident in their own skin. The guys laughed at his obvious infatuation, having fun at his expense, but he didn't care. They could tease him all they wanted but he couldn't stop staring.

She knew he was watching too and she liked it, purposely brushing up against him as she walked around, giving him birds eye views of both her amazing breasts and voluptuous ass straining the seams of those tight jeans.

Not that Dean was complaining. It was like having his birthday, Christmas, the Fourth of July and a perfect werewolf hunt all rolled up into one ocean breeze scented package.

He completely tuned out any effort at conversation from the other guys and, to their credit, they picked up wing man duty like pros, leaving him free to gawk and lust. Beth sat down in a chair facing him, her legs crossed and her right foot swinging slowly in high heeled boots.

She didn't say anything to Dean, just stared intently with a little smile on those beautiful lips, her ice blue eyes dancing with excitement, or danger, or lust. He don't know. Dean was proud of his good looks, used getting his share of admiring glances, but her attention had him feeling like a pimple faced freshman.

She stood up after awhile and stretched cat-like, flipping her hair back and causing her shirt to pull tighter across her chest.

"I want candy," she purred at Dean and he immediately jumped to his feet to be of service.

"I'll go out and grab you some," he gushed at her. There were always various and sundry snacks on the table in the main hall, and if he had a tail this is the part where he would be wagging it.

She smiled at him, biting her bottom lip in a way that was both adorable and dirty in equal measures and the ache in his groin came running back at lightening speed.

"Not the candy out front," she objected, her mouth curling into a small pout. "That's just the cheap generic stuff that the mothers try to get rid off."

"Okay," he agreed quickly, ready to run to freakin' Hershey, PA itself if she wanted him to. "I'll go find a store. What kind do you want?"

She strolled slowly over to Dean, her mouth still beautifully pouting, and took his hand.

"There's chocolate in the storage room," she purred. "Pastor Jim saves it for the youth meetings after Sunday services. He won't mind if we help ourselves. But it's up on a high shelf and I can't reach it."

Dean knew every inch of the grounds and didn't remember ever coming across a candy stash. He would have clearly made note of that. Couldn't remember an after services candy grab either but he was so entranced by her that he wasn't thinking clearly.

He also didn't hear the other guys laughing and, honestly, they could have been doing stand up comedy for all he knew. Beth easily led him to the storage room door and he was prepared to climb a shelf, build a scaffold or fight an angry spirit to make sure she got what she wanted.

She pulled him inside and snapped on a light switch next to the door. The light had only one dim bulb that buzzed pathetically like any second of use could be its last, casting a faint shadow over a small, cramped room that had almost nothing on its shelves and smelled like disinfectant.

She shrugged her shoulders at his look of confusion, not appearing to be too put out.

"No candy," she said, with no hint of sadness in her voice as she pulled Dean towards her.

Slowly she backed up against a wall, snaking her arms around his neck and pulling his face down to meet hers. Her lips parted and Dean dove right in to the softness of her mouth, completely oblivious now to anything but the electrical sensation of her curious tongue.

It could have been five minutes or it could have been five years. Dean lost all track of time and his surroundings as he surrendered himself to her kisses.

Moving more confidently than she probably should have, Beth grabbed his right hand in her left one and guided it first under her shirt, and then under one lacy cup of her bra, allowing him explore the soft flesh of her warm breast. She put her other hand down the back of Dean's pants and under his boxers, grabbed his ass and squeezed hard and he moaned deep in his throat with heady thoughts of how they just got to second base with her at the wheel.

He kind of liked her take charge attitude.

In Dean's blissful state he didn't even notice the door being flung open and it wasn't until someone grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and roughly pulled him away from her that he even realized what was going on. One minute he was in heaven and then the very next he was staring directly into the furious face of twin set and pearl wearing Ms. Purvis.

Without hesitation he was frog marched directly to Pastor Jim with Ms. Purvis' preachy diatribe of trouble-making sinners taking advantage of good Christian girls ringing in his ears. Jim had been surprisingly kind about it. Gently scolding Dean with a lengthy discussion on abstinence and temptation instead of being as angry as he should have been.

Thank God for his father's absence at that point. Because although Dad had no love for a God that allowed his wife to burn, Dean knew that even John Winchester would draw the line at his son feeling up a girl in church.

Of course they were closely watched after that episode.

Beth had started attending the daily study sessions instead of just the weekly youth meeting. Jim had pointedly seated her across the table from Dean, away from the temptation of grabby hands. But it hadn't stopped her from angling a wandering foot up and down Dean's legs as they faked interest in the reading materials, sending shock waves of pleasure up his spine.

For the next few evenings there were casual brushes against each other at the snack table. Smoldering looks above open pages of biblical texts. Stolen, passionate, strawberry flavored kisses behind the door of the community hall kitchen after they volunteered for clean up duty.

By the time Pastor Jim's housekeeper told the boys that he was called away on hunter's business a week later, Dean's balls were bluer than a smurf.

Presented with the perfect opportunity to skip out, there was no hesitation on his part to grab the Impala's keys with one hand and Beth in a shockingly short skirt in the other and make a break away from the watchful eyes of helmet heads and twin sets.

She directed him easily to the parking area near the iconic giant statue. Late enough in the evening to be safe from the prying eyes of visiting tourists. Withe the Impala's engine still warm from the short drive, an enthusiastic make out session in the front seat rapidly progressed to the back seat. Frenzied kisses and groping hands becoming fumbling maneuvers to move clothing out of the way.

Dean lay willingly on his back as Beth climbed on top of him, scarcely comprehending the reality that this beautiful girl was about to become his _First Time,_. With a determination that took his breath away she nipped him repeatedly, his pleasure sensors on overload, as if she were claiming him.

He was happy to surrender.

Close by, the big green man stood sentry behind them, steadfast and strong at his post, and Dean's last rational thought was that Beth had seemed very skilled in the way she had wrangled him into a condom. He didn't mind. In fact, he was grateful. At least one of them should know what they were doing, after all.

The urgency kept building and building, steamed windows and creaking leather as soft flesh rocked together until Dean had fireworks of pleasure explode in his brain, rendering him unable to speak while his legs shook from the aftereffects.

Beth was still on top, giving him the full cowgirl, when the Impala's back door was ripped open.

Things got noisy after that. Beth was pulled off of him, afterglow turning to tears as Pastor Jim wrapped her slight form up in his suit coat. Mortified, Dean struggled to get dressed as he stared wide eyed at Beth being bundled into Jim's pick up.

A struggle that had only become worse when he caught sight of his father's imposing form, strong massive arms reaching into the interior of the car to bodily extract his oldest son. Dean positively freaking out and tripping over his pooled up jeans in the process.

John had dragged Dean, hyperventilating and half dressed to the back of the Impala, already pulling his own belt from the loops of his jeans that were covered in mud from the ditch where they had wrecked Caleb's jeep.

The older hunter's emotions were running high from the stress of the car accident he had just been in thirty miles outside of Blue Earth, bleeding into the abject fear and worry over his missing son. Car gone and Sammy alone at the rectory having no clue where his brother was. Only to stumble across his boy going for glory in the backseat where the kid himself had probably been conceived.

Mary had loved that car.

With his father's unwielding hand holding him bent over the trunk, Dean had his recently deflowered bare ass whipped all the colors of the rainbow. Right out in the open in front of God and Jolly Green.

It had also cost him two painful hours sitting on a hard church pew while Jim lectured on sin and salvation. Besides being grounded practically forever for a list of offenses that his dad was happy to reiterate repeatedly when they headed out the next day for an eighteen hour road trip to the next hunt.

To this day, Dean still felt that it had all been worth it.

_Now….._

Dean's small smile turned up at the corners to a full grin as they zoomed past the Green Giant statue. They were old friends, him and Jolly Green, and he found himself flipping a jaunty salute to the character that had born witness to one of his most awesome experiences.

Good Times.

Pastor Jim's place never changed. There was a warm feeling of comfort and familiarity as the two Winchester vehicles pulled up in the driveway. The man himself was waiting for them on the porch as they climbed out of the cars, stretching and popping muscles from the long day on the road.

Sam bounded up the stairs and greeted Jim with a hug, like the affectionate puppy that he was. The Winchester brothers had little in the way of close family and the good pastor was part of their small circle.

Dean wasn't much of a hugger at his age but he did give Jim a warm handshake and hearty pat on the back. The pastor herded the boys into the kitchen where his housekeeper laid out some sandwiches and iced tea that they snacked on while their father and Jim talked quietly in the den.

When the two older men finally joined them in the kitchen quite awhile after their arrival Dad reminded them that they had PT to do so Sam and Dean grabbed their bags out of the car and changed into their sweats. It was late in the afternoon but still beautiful outside with plenty of daylight left, and the large well manicured side yard was the perfect place to do their drill.

It didn't take long for them to fall into the regular rhythm of the mandatory workout that John had them follow religiously, firmly believing that hunters needed to keep physically fit at all times.

_Boys! Is your body an asset or a weakness?_

Dad would routinely bark this question at them when enthusiasm for early morning runs was less than stellar. Genetic luck with rapid fire metabolisms kept them slim despite Dean's love affair with grease and pie. But even skinny kids needed conditioning to build up strength and speed.

Dean did the workouts because his father ordered them done and that was that. No questions asked, because he was a _good_ son. Fortunately Sam didn't mind them too much, preferring a healthier lifestyle anyway, and a good natured competition had grown over the years as he caught up to his older brother in size and strength.

Days spent cooped up the car made the exercise even more attractive to two active young men, sets of sit ups, push ups and crunches expending pent up energy from sitting still too long. Moving side by side in unison on Jim's lawn as they counted out their sets the brother's enjoyed some quiet camaraderie.

Somehow their father's sixth sense had the man stepping out onto the porch as the boys finished up the usual drill.

"Boys! Come up for a minute and hydrate."

Sweating and breathing hard, they loped up the stairs and gratefully took the bottles of water that Dad held out for them.

"How's your head, kiddo?"

Dean looked up at his father's knowing eyes, a ghost of a smile on the man's lips.

"All better," he replied, cocksure grin wide and confident.

John nodded, paternal stare successfully getting the message across to his oldest that today's subterfuge was a one shot deal.

"Sammy, not too much water. You better get back to your second round before you cool down too much," John ordered, not angrily but his voice making it clear that it wasn't a suggestion.

Dean also stood up as Sam reluctantly pulled himself up from the porch chair but his father's strong hand firmly pushed him back into his seat.

"Sam can do this one on his own, Dean. You count him out."

Dean was getting ready to protest when Sam shook his head every so slightly. There was no reason for Dad to be annoyed with both of them. Without a word the younger boy headed back out onto the lawn and dropped down to begin his sets again.

His father gave Dean a quick pat on the shoulder and headed back into the house. Irritated and restless he sat helplessly in his porch chair and watched his little brother push himself through another full workout. Dean was going to stuff the kid's face with food himself tonight at dinner. Sam was skinny enough and he didn't need to lose the calories from an extra round of PT.

When the door opened behind him, Dean averted his gaze to avoid making a disrespectful comment to his father. It was John's place to handle his sons but it didn't mean that Dean always agreed with him. He was surprised when it was Jim that took the seat next to him instead of his father.

"How are you, Dean?"

Jim's voice was kind and concerned as always and he had a way of looking at Dean and seeing past all of the emotional masks and defenses that the young man had built up over the years.

Dean could have talked to him about anything and known that the good pastor would keep his confidence. He could talk about Sam's suspicious behavior and growing distance, or his father's increasing stranglehold on the kid. Of Dean's own weariness of the fights and fears for his little family.

But he didn't.

Even with someone as close and trusted as Jim was, Dean was loyal to Team Winchester, and talking about his father or brother behind their backs was an act of betrayal to his young mind. So, as usual, he changed the subject.

"Do you remember Beth?" he asked, smiling mischievously.

Jim laughed, shaking his head slightly and leaning back into the chair.

"Of course. She definitely left an impression."

Dean chuckled, managing to look a little chagrined over the slightly embarrassing manner in which Jim had last encountered Dean and Beth together.

"I was thinking about her today while we were driving here," he admitted. "Does she ever come around anymore?"

Jim's smile tightened and his eyes had a wave of sadness peek into them.

"No. She doesn't. Actually, no one has seen her for almost three years."

Dean blinked hard at that news. Partly from the guilt of never having asked Jim about her during the couple of brief visits the Winchesters had made to Blue Earth since that last stay.

"You remember that she had a troubled home life?"

Jim's question was gentle and kind and Dean nodded jerkily, recalling the numerous injuries that had littered Beth's face and arms when they were kids. He pushed his memory further and finally remembered them still present, yellowing and faded, but present when they had their romp in the Impala's backseat.

"She just left one day," Jim said sadly. "No warning, no message. One morning her mother just found her room empty. Hasn't heard from her since."

Dean sat quiet, stunned, as he took in that information. That Beth had wanted to escape her life was not surprising. There were years of pain and unhappiness in her home and a person could only take so much. What did surprise him was Beth cutting off contact with her mother. For all of her mother's faults, Beth had always given him the impression that she loved her mother deeply.

As if reading his thoughts Jim continued softly.

"Sometimes when someone is unhappy they make drastic decisions to do what is best for themselves. I think Beth knew that things at home were never going to change. And no matter how much you may love your family, you may find yourself needing to leave them behind."

Feeling cold all of sudden Dean stared out across the lawn and watched as Sam powered through his sets. Teeth gritting with determination and eyes narrowed. His recent secretiveness. Longer than usual trips to the library. An extra strong reluctance for Dean to be anywhere near his duffel bags.

It was starting to click.

Sam was unhappy. Really and truly unhappy.

Dean knew it. Dad knew it. Hell, everyone knew it. His kid brother wasn't one to suffer in silence. The question was how unhappy? Unhappy enough to bail on his family? The boy had run away more than once, after all.

In that moment, sitting in the late afternoon sun on Jim's porch, Dean realized that he needed to do something. Now. Otherwise he might just be here again someday. Talking to Jim. Only this time they might be talking about how Dean and John hadn't heard from Sam in three years.

And that wasn't a future Dean was ready to live with.


	4. August 2000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam makes plans and Dean has a suprise.

_"Demons lie, John."_

That was the third time those words had come out of Singer's mouth since they left the abandoned warehouse outside of Minneapolis. John clenched the steering wheel of the Sierra with a death grip to avoid snarling at his friend, because if the salvage man tried to say it one more time, John was going to start throwing punches.

"Yeah," he seethed, swirls of red rage dancing around the corners of his vision. "But they tell the truth if it hurts more."

The entire hunt had been one enormous clusterfuck. Now exhausted, bloody, bruised and drained, John was flooring the gas pedal to race back to his kids.

*

Demon possessions were rare.

Even Singer, who was the hunting community's go-to guy on demonology, only came across a handful of them in any given year. Once Missouri had convinced John that it had, in fact, been a demon that had killed his Mary, it was Bobby's expertise on the subject that had been the reason John sought him out in the first place.

That was almost fifteen years ago. The Winchesters had arrived in Sioux Falls in the early hours of a cold February morning and John had unabashedly interrupted Bobby's first cup of coffee with an insistence on learning everything and anything demon related.

Bobby Singer didn't like people. In fact, the less he had to be subjected to outsiders, the better, and he really didn't like people that messed with his caffeine fix.

It was an aversion that didn't always jibe with either of his professions. The ramshackle salvage yard he had inherited from his bastard of a father did okay financially, but it could have done a lot better with an owner that didn't scare off customers with his distrusting glares and ever present aroma of whiskey.

The hunting he did so that some other poor clueless schmuck wouldn't have to kill his possessed wife, and while Bobby could pretext with the best of them he didn't actually like being around civilians once the case was put to bed.

Something changed the day the grieving little family showed up at his house. In John's eyes he saw the same pain and determination Bobby had been seeing in the mirror every morning since Karen.

This wasn't a civilian.

He already knew from Missouri that Winchester was an up and comer in the hunting world and the similarities of their introductions into the life had Bobby more willing than normal to offer assistance.

Then there were the boys.

A little six year old with spiky light brown hair and piercing green eyes that alternately glared distrustfully at Bobby and then shined wide with fear at the unfamiliar surroundings. Bobby's first glimpse of him was as he hid halfway behind his father's tall broad stance, clutching Winchester's leather coat in his little hands.

In the man's arms, halfway asleep, was a toddler with a mop of chocolate brown curls and flushed pink cheeks. He clung to his daddy like a little spider monkey, head buried in Winchester's neck and sucking a thumb that his father repeatedly removed while the two men spoke.

John was a man that was walking a precarious line between being emotionally wrecked and obsessively driven. A former Marine who had lived through the horrors of Vietnam, only to come home, marry the love of his life and father two beautiful boys before being thrown head first into the supernatural world.

Winchester feared for his boys in a way that a childless man like Singer could only guess at. Bobby couldn't blame him a bit. After only a few days in his house, he himself was falling in love with the two adorable rugrats, against all good reason and sense.

Sadly, as the little family infiltrated his solitary life, enjoying their company ripped open the gaping wound left by his last fight with his Karen over his unwillingness to give her a child. An excruciating pain that had him reaching for the bottle a little more than usual. He hadn't wanted to risk becoming a man like his father had been, but her tears over his angry words would haunt his days forever.

Dean was a tiny force of nature. A tough sturdy little boy, equal parts mischief and good manners. He hero worshiped his father and tenderly doted on his little brother. There wasn't anything little Sammy needed that Dean didn't run to provide, from a snack to a cuddle, or even help with a diaper change. John never had to tell him twice to do anything, and even childless Bobby knew that six year olds didn't just obey like that usually.

The baby was as inquisitive as every child that age. He waddled around the old house at impressive speeds, getting into everything and anything, with his hawk-eyed miniature guardian glued to his side to make sure he never got hurt. Sammy was happiest climbing all over his father as John sat hunched over Bobby's kitchen table reading every book the salvage man put in front of him.

After a few moments of jumping and tugging John would settle the toddler on his lap with a picture book of his own and the two would sit with identical distracted looks on their faces while they leafed through the pages. Dean would flop down on the floor as close to his father and brother as he could physically place himself and sit, perfectly content, as he quietly played with whatever toy had caught his interest.

What had originally started as a plea for knowledge turned into an extended stay.

For all of Bobby's abhorrence of people he bonded with John and his boys in a way he never had before. He enjoyed the lively sounds of children scampering through the aging home, bringing a semblance of happiness to the house that had been missing since Karen's death. The old place hadn't known the laughter of a child before. In Bobby's lifetime anyway.

John was proud but obviously struggling financially. His complete mania about refusing to keep his boys in any one place too long saw the little family in perpetual motion, but their nomadic lifestyle took money that was hard to come by and it was beginning to show in the well worn clothes and tattered toys.

Bobby had offered his place for as long as they needed it but John wouldn't stay without paying his way, a quiet dignity in his refusal to accept a handout even from kindred spirit like Singer. He was, in fact, preparing to leave until old Mrs. Hillstrom brought her belching heap of a Buick to the salvage yard looking for help.

The other garages in the area refused to do a nonprofitable patch job on a car with almost no book value and little prospect of repeat business, and it might have been slightly to their credit that none of them were keen to take advantage of a senior on a fixed income by jacking up the estimates unnecessarily.

Bobby's place had been her last desperate hope. He took a cursory look under the hood and sighed, scratching his head under his well worn ball cap as he tried to come up with a civil way of telling her that he agreed with the others. Fortunately for her John had come outside with the boys all bundled up for a last run around the grounds before being packed into the car for their imminent departure.

He had seen the old lady's weepy eyes and walked over to see if he could help and Bobby could see that behind the grief and obsession Winchester was naturally a kind and gentle man. Mrs. Hillstrom had tearfully choked out the story of how the ancient beast of a car had been her late husband's last gift to her and she couldn't bear to part with it. It wasn't worth nothing in Bobby's opinion, money-wise, but sometimes there were more important things than money.

John had patted her shoulder warmly, one grieving spouse to another, before telling Dean to take Sammy back into the house to look at his picture books. Without asking anyone's consent he got in the car and pulled it into the empty bay across from the house and less than thirty minutes later had it purring like a kitten. Mrs. Hillstrom was still crying, this time with joy, as she attempted to push a small handful of cash at John's chest. Only for him to waive her off and nod in Bobby's direction.

Partial payment for the last few days of room and board for him and his kids, Bobby knew. Even though the younger man was flat broke himself his pride had him doing the honorable thing.

During their initial meeting Winchester had briefly mentioned having experience as a mechanic, but Bobby hadn't realized just how skilled the younger man actually was. After that it didn't take much convincing to keep John at the salvage yard, working out an agreement for housing, knowledge and a bit of cash in exchange for occasional repair jobs.

It took a few weeks for Dean to finally relax around Bobby enough that he didn't watch the salvage man's every move with a suspicious eye when he walked within five feet of his little brother. His brilliant green eyes already had a penetrating stare enough to unnerve Singer and actually had him wondering exactly when he had become someone who got intimidated by a _six year old_.

The little boy wasn't a big talker either unless it was to answer one of the baby's babbling questions that only his big brother seemed to understand. Dean's entire early vocabulary to Bobby consisted only of 'Good Morning', 'Good Night', 'Please', 'Thank You', 'Yes, Sir' and 'No, Sir'.

Singer had initially been concerned with Dean's lack of vocal skills but it hadn't taken too long for him to realize that the six year old was exceptionally chatty with his father and brother when he didn't realized he was being watched. At six Dean should have at least been in kindergarten already but John had kept him away from school so far. From the limited conversation they had held regarding that decision Bobby got the distinct impression it was more over worry about having his boy among a bunch of strangers than about not wanting Dean educated.

Dean could already read, which surprised Bobby early in the stay. He soon realized though that whenever Sammy was put down for a nap, and there were no repair jobs for John to do, Dean would crawl into his father's lap and John would patiently help his son read book after book. Something the young father had apparently been doing for some time.

The little boy knew basic addition and subtraction as well. It wasn't unusual for Bobby to come into a room and hear Dean chatter to Sammy about how many building blocks he could add and take away as they made towers on the carpet in the living room. It didn't seem to matter that Sammy had no idea what Dean was talking about.

The baby would listen wide eyed and smiling to anything his big brother said to him.

Dean was obviously very bright and, to his credit, John spent a good deal of time encouraging his son's intellectual curiosity. Singer still thought the boy needed to be around more kids that just his brother but he wasn't about to pick a fight with John over his parenting choices just yet.

It took almost two months of living together for Dean to allow Bobby to be alone with Sam for any length of time. With the South Dakota weather still too cold for the baby, Dean would run back and forth between the semi-exposed bay, when John would work on the occasional repair, and the house where Sammy napped on the couch in Bobby's living room.

It would have been cute if Bobby didn't see just how frenzied the little boy became when separated from either of his family members.

The warding around the Singer home made John tolerably comfortable that it was relatively safe for his children, but only barely, and by the time Sammy's second birthday rolled around three months into their stay the protective father was chomping at the bit to be on their way again and put his newfound knowledge to use.

Although Bobby himself managed to live above board most of the time he gave John careful instruction on how to work a hunter's credit card fraud to keep his little family housed and fed. Initially, Winchester had been reluctant. His hesitation a throwback to a time when the former Marine couldn't imagine acting so dishonestly.

Eventually, the young father had accepted that it was a price he needed to pay to care for his children if they were going to continue their search instead of settling back down. John had picked up pool and poker in the Corps and Rufus, Bobby's occasional hunting partner and mentor, taught John how to use those skills to hustle to bring in some fast cash on the road.

There had only been a little money from the sale of the house in Lawrence. John and Mary had owned it just a few short years before the fire and it had a hefty mortgage that needed to be paid off first. The money had lasted for the first year or so, but John was well and truly broke now. In retrospect, as finances got tight, John had often lamented just giving his share of the garage to his former partner Mike Gunther in a fit of anger after an argument they had over John's growing absence from work and his increasingly manic insistence that the fire had been unnatural.

More worrisome had been the way that Mike's wife Kathy had grown attached to the boys with an undisguised longing in her eyes. John wasn't taking the chance that she wouldn't cross a line about questioning his fitness as a father and eventually he had just grabbed the boys and booked, never looking back.

On Sammy's second birthday they had held a small party for the baby at the salvage yard. Just enough of a celebration to take a few pictures and have a cake with two candles that Dean helped blow out. John had been putting aside his share of the cash from the repair jobs and he used a bit of that to buy some clothes and toys for Sammy and some for Dean too as a big brother present. It had seemed like a nice day.

That had been the first night that Bobby saw John take a drink of something stronger than beer.

Hours after the boys had been put to bed Bobby had walked by their room to see John sitting propped up against the headboard of Dean's bed with both of the boys asleep in his arms. The younger man was crying softly as he clutched his children to his chest, the blurry haze of whiskey making him oblivious to Bobby's shadowy presence in the open doorway. Bobby walked away quietly, unable to stomach the naked pain on John's face.

He wasn't surprised to wake up the next morning and find John already packing the Impala. Whatever brief period of peace the younger man had found at the salvage yard was clearly over. Singer could only imagine that a night crawled into the bottom of a bottle of Hunter's Helper had helped John dull the pain of missing his wife on their baby's birthday, but in the light of day it was clearly time to move on.

Bobby watched the little family pull away from his home that day, not knowing how long it would be until he saw them again, and not realizing just how much he was going to miss them all.

For a man who had spent years living on his own, and being okay with that, the house suddenly seemed cold and empty without the constant buzz of little boys running around. The absence of John's companionship hit him harder that Bobby would have guessed. The two men had much in common and there had been many nights of quiet conversation you could only share with someone who had walked in your own shoes.

Rufus served as a hunting and drinking partner for a long time before this, but even his friendship didn't replace the hole in Singer's heart that the Winchesters now occupied.

They kept in contact. John called occasionally for help with various hunts and Bobby was glad to hear that Dean did go to school in the fall. He even managed to convince John to bring the boys up for Thanksgiving, which turned out to be easier than expected since the young father was already pulling Dean out of the school he had been attending to go hunt a banshee in Nevada.

Bobby had wanted to say something about moving the kids around so much but he held his tongue. It wasn't his place to give anyone advice on child rearing. When the little family did arrive in Sioux Falls the boys looked happy and healthy and that was what was important.

It was John that worried him.

In just the few months they had been gone the younger man had grown a little harder, his eyes a little colder, as the hunting life claimed him. He still doted on his kids but his demeanor towards Bobby was less companionable, more professional. There were fewer relaxed conversations that didn't directly relate to hunting and a return of the whiskey soaked evening on Thanksgiving night after the boys were sleeping.

A few days later John took Dean out to the back lot to shoot targets for the first time. Bobby had worried about putting a gun in the little boy's hands but the young father was dead set on it and there wasn't any changing his mind. When Dean bullseyed every single target his dad's eyes shone with pride, but the salvage man's were full of sadness.

And so the visits came and went over the years.

As hard as Winchester tried, the hunting life spilled over in his family's life on more than one occasion. Dean had been old enough to remember the night his mother died so there had never been any chance of protecting his innocence, but John did try desperately to shield Sammy for as long as he could.

During their visits Singer watched the boys grow strong and confident. Closer to each other than conjoined twins, they would chase each other around the house and the salvage yard while their father studied and pressed Bobby for new leads and information on demon sightings.

Sammy followed after his big brother everywhere, hanging on Dean's every word like it was gospel, in the same manner that Dean shadowed their father. In return Dean cared for his little brother like a mother hen, his attention only increasing as they grew and beginning to include their father as well as John became more focused on his mission.

Sammy was just about to start school when Jim Murphy had called Bobby to tell him that a Shtriga that John had been hunting had found it's way to the motel room where the boys were holed up. Almost claiming the youngest Winchester's life before his father followed the trail back to his children and chased it off.

The distraught father had driven like a man possessed to get his kids safely to Blue Earth, out of harm's way, and was unfortunately too late to finish the kill when he returned to the motel, missing the end of the feeding cycle.

After John returned to collect the boys from Jim's place he brought them to the salvage yard for what Bobby hoped was a break to collect themselves after the near disaster that had almost claimed Sammy, but he was wrong. There was an indescribable tension between John and Dean when they arrived. Something more than just the receding adrenaline rush of a hunt gone bad and the debilitating panic of almost losing their youngest.

John was dark and stormy, his eyes narrowing in anger one minute and guilt laden the next. Dean, who had never hesitated to cuddle up to his father for story or a lesson on car repair, was suddenly withdrawn and distant. Avoiding his dad like the plague unless he was directly addressed and watching Sammy's every movement like the little boy was made of glass.

A few days into their stay John caught a case in Oklahoma and, for the first time, he consented to leave the boys in Bobby's care. A strict command to Dean to spend time working on his skills with the double barrel shotgun left the boy crushed for some unknown reason because the kid loved to shoot. Bobby didn't fail to notice that Dean couldn't even look his dad in the eye when John walked out the door.

That was the first time that Singer balked at John's parenting. Instead of having Dean shoot one day he took the kid to the park to toss a ball around. He knew there would be hell to pay, but he would be the one to pay it, not the boy. Sure enough, when John checked in by phone, he was furious, but when he returned he spent time with Dean shooting and playing a few games of catch, and while their relationship warmed back up the unease still lingered for a while.

After that Bobby saw them occasionally for a day or two between hunts. It was getting harder to hide the hunting world from Sammy as he got older, especially in Bobby's house where every surface was covered with the world of the strange. The kid wasn't dumb, after all, and Singer wasn't surprised to find out that the cat was out of the bag just before Dean had his thirteenth birthday.

That new development brought even more unfortunate changes to the family dynamic.

Sammy, who had always been verbal and opinionated, started to become downright belligerent around his father. John's ever increasing passion for the hunt came at the expense of his formerly gentle manner and now there was an ever present underlining tension between himself and his youngest son. Whereas Dean obeyed blindly and never asked questions, all Sammy did was buck his father's orders, no matter how innocuous they were.

Bobby hadn't failed to notice that the amulet he had given Sam to gift to John was worn proudly around Dean's neck instead, and he chose to make no mention of that little tidbit of information. Devoted to them both, Dean bent over backwards to play peacemaker, but he was still just a kid too and not always perfect no matter how hard he tried.

They came to Sioux Falls at the beginning of the summer after Sammy turned nine and from the moment they walked into the house a fight was brewing between the boys. Nothing out of the ordinary for normal brothers, but decisively out of character for the Winchesters. For three days the boys bickered and tussled and pushed each other's buttons. John scolded, sent them out for runs to work off energy, confined them to separate rooms and downright ordered them to behave _or else._

They would stop for a while, cowed and subdued, only to kick up another fuss a few minutes later.

Eventually everything came to a head one sunny afternoon, and the next thing John and Bobby knew the boys were brawling and throwing punches, banging around the living room like little bulls in a china shop. Culminating in a tumbling ball of skinny arms and legs crashing into an end table and sending a lamp shattering against the faded wallpaper walls.

John had had enough by that point, lunging after his kids sprawled on the floor still going at it as he grabbed at flailing limbs, hauling the troublemakers up in two clean jerks of the backs of their shirts. Deadly silent he marched them upstairs to the room they shared, and even from a distance Bobby could hear the unmistakable sounds of a belt smacking skin and teary apologies of contrite boys.

Something snapped inside of him. The echos of his own miserable childhood roaring back at lightening speed. A fury built inside of him, ringing in his ears and clouding his vision. The whole event couldn't have lasted more than five minutes, but to the salvage man time had suddenly stood still as he drowned in memories of the past.

When John lumbered back down, apologies on his lips, Bobby let him have both barrels of his pent up and repressed emotions. During this tirade consisting of accusations of bastard fathers and beaten children, Winchester grew scarily quiet, an eerie darkness in his eyes, letting the older man speak his piece. Without a word of retort he calmly cleaned up the mangled lamp before heading back upstairs. His anger spent, Bobby stood motionless in his empty living room for the few minutes that it took John to collect his kids.

He watched the boys as they trudged down the stairs, red faced and sniffling, but perfectly fine otherwise. There were no bruises, black eyes or broken bones that had been the hallmark of discipline in the Singer household. John was stone cold sober, unlike Bobby's old man most days, and the Winchester boys hadn't been cruelly beaten under the stench of cheap bourbon and stale sweat.

Sam, clingy since infancy when he was upset, was holding tightly to John's hand and unabashedly rubbing his tear tracked and snotty face into his father's sleeve as they walked. Clearly _not_ petrified of his father the way Bobby had been of his own. Dean behind them, guilt radiating off of him in waves as he surreptitiously stole glances towards the table where the lamp had once resided. He uncharacteristically glared at Bobby, having obviously overheard some of the salvage man's rant against his dad, and the boy's undisguised ire was like a punch to the gut.

Belatedly Bobby realized that they were all carrying their duffels, fully packed and ready to go. John pressed the boys for an apology in Bobby's direction before politely thanking him for his hospitality and leaving a fifty on the table where the lamp had been. Without another word he led the boys out to the car and drove off, the Impala's wide tires kicking up gravel as they sped down the driveway.

Bobby didn't see them again for almost three years.

Realizing too late that he had allowed his own unresolved issues over his father's abuse spill over into his relationship with John and the boys, he had reached out to Winchester on several occasions. Firstly under the pretense of sending him hunts and lore books for a while before working up the courage to ask them back for a visit. John never took him up on the visits but he didn't stop the boys from talking to Bobby on the phone either.

Jim Murphy saw them occasionally and he was kind enough to keep Bobby updated. The Winchesters had stayed with him in Blue Earth for a while after John took a beating on a hunt and needed some down time. They boys were fine, Jim assured him. Making friends and happy, but Bobby still missed seeing them and his heart ached from the painful memory of their parting.

With contact limited he was jerked awake by the late night arrival of the Impala's distinctive engine roaring up his driveway. He was waiting at the door, fear piercing his heart over the unexpected visit. In the darkness of the yard John hefted his youngest, wrapped up in a blanket, out of the back seat and towards the house. An icy panic washed over Bobby for a split second before he realized that the boy was just deeply asleep and not injured.

Still small for almost twelve, Sammy was no trouble for his dad to carry up to their old room and settle onto the bed without waking him. Bobby stood in the threshold, biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood as his mind raced with worry over Dean's whereabouts. He waited patiently, not wanting to spook John into taking off again, until the two men were back down in the living room.

Over a large tumbler of whiskey John told him about Dean getting caught shoplifting after gambling their food money away. Dean had been taken to a boy's home, CPS circling like sharks after the scent of blood. To protect the son John still had in his possession he had been forced to leave Dean at the home until he was sure that Sam would be somewhere safe but he desperately needed to get back to New York.

Still wracked with guilt over their last encounter, Bobby had sworn to care for and protect Sammy until John could reunite his little family. Winchester had already proven that he could and would keep his children away from Singer or anyone else if his parenting was questioned. He was a far different man now than the one Bobby had met years earlier. Sharper, colder and even ruthless to various degrees, but still frantic to protect his boys.

Bobby was at the kitchen table drinking his fourth cup of coffee by the time Sam had ambled down the stairs the next morning. The house was overpowered by the smell of eggs and bacon, so heavy that the yard dogs were whining hopefully on the porch for the treat they knew would be forthcoming. Sam's face was scrunched up in a still drowsy wakefulness as he padded across the living room in his pajamas and bare feet. He gave Bobby a shy hug and then slumped down in the chair next to him.

"Hi, Uncle Bobby."

"Hey Sam," Bobby answered, his voice breaking a little as emotion flooded his throat. He was just so goddamn glad to see the kid again. "You want some breakfast, boy?"

Sam shook his messy head and leaned over sleepily to rest his forehead in the crook of his arm.

"Dad's been making me eat, like, a million times a day, since he got back."

Bobby's face puckered into a frown hearing that. When John had explained what happened with Dean he wondered what kind of straits the boys had been left in.

"Maybe he was worried you hadn't been eating enough when he was away," Bobby said gently. "Had Dean been making sure you boys were eating okay?"

Sam picked his head up and stared at Bobby as if the man had suddenly grown ten heads.

"Of course he did. He made us mac and cheese with hot dogs just before he left that night."

The young boy seemed affronted at any insinuation that his big brother hadn't been taking care of him. Sam looked healthy and well fed enough at any rate and Bobby decided not to press the issue as to whether or not that meal had consisted of the last of whatever food the boys had in their room.

"Your daddy left a few hours ago," he replied instead, changing the subject.

Sam stretched and yawned, idly scratching the tangled rat's nest of his bedhead.

"I know. He woke me up to say goodbye."

Curious as always, Sam's eyes wandered around the room, scanning the piles of books scattered on the desks and shelves. He got up from the table abruptly and wandered over to a stack perched precariously on the old desk in the corner.

"Can I look at these?"

Bobby glanced at the collection quickly and deemed the volumes harmless enough considering what John probably already had the boy reading. He nodded his consent and watched as Sam grabbed one and curled up on the couch.

The lack of conversation wasn't like Sam. He talked damn near constantly ever since the first day his daddy had carried him into the house. Singer watched him cautiously out of the corner of one eye, the silence thick and heavy between them. He finished his fifth cup and had poured his sixth, grabbing a few strips of bacon out of the warm pan and opened the door just wide enough to toss them to the mutts before being startled by Sam's voice behind him.

"He wasn't supposed to be hunting," Sam stated with shaky words. "He was mad at Dad."

The boy's face was grief stricken, his lower lip beginning to tremble as he sat hunched up on the sofa looking small and vulnerable. Bobby had sighed deep because John had warned him that Sammy had been told that Dean was missing from a hunt. Why that story and not the truth, he hadn't asked, not really wanting the answer.

"Dean?"

Sam nodded and reached up to brush away a stray tear.

"A couple of weeks ago, Dad took us to New York City on a werewolf hunt. He even brought us sightseeing afterwards."

Sammy was smiling at the memory even though his shoulders were trembing and Bobby smiled too at the idea of the little family doing the tourist bit.

"But then Dean snuck out to go to some club and Dad had to go find him," Sam continued. "They had a big fight and Dean got really mad at Dad and yelled at him. Dean never yells at Dad."

Sam's eyes were wide in disbelief, as if he was still processing the idea that Dean would ever be that disrespectful to John. Frankly, Bobby's eyes probably looked the same.

"Dean wasn't supposed to leave our room when we moved to Hurleyville. Dad said he was grounded. So he shouldn't have been hunting in the first place."

Bobby had had no answer to that simple statement of fact. It was clearer now why Dean had chosen to gamble the food money, possibly as a fit of rebellion and not necessarily need. The cocky sixteen year old probably hadn't imagined a scenario where he would lose the cash and then need to steal to feed his brother and himself, let alone get caught doing it.

Bobby wanted to comfort Sam but he wasn't going to risk the tenuous truce that he had going with John by revealing the whole story. Instead he took a seat next to Sam on the couch and pulled the boy into a hug.

"He didn't even say goodbye to me," Sam whimpered as the tears fell freely.

Over the next few weeks Bobby had tried to keep Sam's mind occupied so that he wasn't in a state of constant worry for his brother. John called to check in every few days to let Singer know what was really going on and to comfort his youngest with reassurances of his brother's eventual safe return.

Somehow the charges were dropped and John felt comfortable claiming his boy without fear. He showed up without notice and grabbed Sam one night soon after. The boy bounded out to the Impala without hardly a backwards glance in Bobby's direction, excited to be seeing his brother, and none of them ever spoke of it again.

The next time Bobby had seen the Winchesters it had been Sam who was the wayward son, and Bobby the one wallowing in guilt as it had been partially his fault.

About a year after the CBGB/boys home incident Dean had called Bobby breathless and panicked because Sam had gone missing from their current residence outside of El Paso. The boys had been fighting and Dean left Sam home alone to brood while he looked for some action at a pool hall near the motel. By the time Dean got back Sam was gone. Duffel missing and no note explaining why.

Dean had already been tearing up the area searching for three days before he had been able to get a message to John who was hunting out in the desert with no cell signal. Desperate, he had finally called Bobby in the hopes that Sam had made his way up to Sioux Falls and the salvage man had to break the kid's heart by admitting that the younger brother wasn't with him.

While the Winchesters were looking under every stone in a four state radius, Bobby remembered showing Sam the list of safe houses marked for hunter emergencies. At the time it had been meant to put the boy's mind at ease in case he or his brother had ever found themselves "lost" on another hunt. A place where they could go safely until help could arrive.

Swearing a blue streak he knew right away that Sam would be in one of them because the boy had shown too much of an interest in the specifics of the locations. Bobby had just assumed it was Sam's natural curiosity, but given the kid's bullheadedness he should have known better.

He split the list for the ones near El Paso, taking one half while John and Dean took the other. Leaving Rufus behind at the salvage yard in case the boy did in fact show up there, Bobby hopped a plane and headed south. It had just been dumb luck that he was the one to find Sam at the cabin in Flagstaff.

When Singer had burst through the front door, Sammy was sitting calmly on the bed amid a chaotic mess of empty pizza boxes and Funyun bags, reading with a book in one hand and a Mr. Pibb in the other while a goddamn golden retriever sat guard at his feet. The boy had looked up and _smiled_ at him as innocent as a little cherub.

"Oh. Hi, Uncle Bobby."

As if the little shit didn't have a care in the world. As if Bobby hadn't jumped the first flight out and then hauled ass through six other cabins before hitting this one. As if the boy's brother and daddy weren't ripping their hair out trying to find him, worried out of their minds that one of their usual playmates had been responsible for the kid pulling a Lindbergh baby.

Bobby cursed himself for giving John such a ration of shit about belting the boys years ago since he was itching to put Sam over his own knee at that particular moment.

It took almost three hours for the other Winchesters to reach the cabin once Bobby had called them. John plowed through the door looking like he had aged ten years overnight as he scooped his missing child up into his arms. Dean had looked like shit, and there wasn't a nicer way to describe him. His eyes were ringed black with sleep deprivation, his face whiter than ash and his cheeks hollow. Whatever the kid had put himself through in the last two weeks had quite plainly been hell on earth.

Thankfully after that the visits with the little family had been relatively drama free until Bobby found himself calling John about demon signs in Minneapolis.

/

As soon as Dean and the Impala were safely down the driveway and roaring towards town, Sam pulled open his duffel bag and rifled through the contents until he could grab the stack of papers he had been printing off for the past few weeks.

As he flipped through the pages he knew that his grades as they stood would gain him entrance to most state schools, and that was a good thing because it would probably be all he could afford with student loans. It was the fierce competition for scholarships that had him most concerned.

The better scholarships had more criteria requirements than good grades. Lots of students had the grades so it was the extracurricular activities that really made the applicants stand out. Sam had played a little soccer once upon a time. He had been a Mathlete briefly and always took AP classes when he had a chance. None of that would go a long way towards looking impressive on an application.

Sure, he had unique skills and abilities that would certainly set him apart from the rest of the scholarships seekers. Although he had a sinking feeling that good marksmanship, lethal martial arts skills and a knowledge of how to kill things that go bump in the night were not going to convince anyone that he was worthy of funding without giving some corporate paper pusher nightmares.

He could just imagine how that interview would go.

_"Mr. Winchester. Please tell us about your skills and hobbies."_

_"Well, I can name all of the Zodiac Killer's victims in chronological order and I can make homemade flame throwers."_

Yeah. That would go over well.

He let the papers drop next to him on the couch as he rubbed his eyes and sighed in frustration. What he really needed was a chance to put down some roots long enough to join a few clubs and teams. Make enough of an impression on few teachers who would have no reservations about writing letters of recommendation.

But that wasn't likely to happen. Not with the way the Winchesters lived and moved around. A family of homeless drifters that wandered in and out of towns, keeping their heads down and working hard to make sure they weren't noticed. It was difficult to get teachers to single out excellence in a student that had been groomed since childhood to blend into the background.

Outside Cohen and Perry were barking at something in the distance. Sam's eyes flew open, reflexes already moving his body into a defensive position without even thinking about it. He sprang cat-like into a crouch as he scanned the salvage yard through the dirty window for danger, only relaxing when he realized that the yard dogs were straining at their leashes to snarl at a feral cat crawling on top of one of the old wrecks near the open bay.

Shit like that is why no decent school will ever look at Sam Winchester right now. A couple of dogs can't even bark at a cat without Sam acting like Bobby's place was under attack.

He huffed and flopped back down on the couch, distractedly sorting the pages until his fingers landed on the paperclipped bundle labeled _Emancipation of a Minor Child_.

It's a legal Hail Mary. Dean had been right when he stated plain that Dad would never leave Sam somewhere without another Winchester for as long as an entire school year. Over the years there had been more than one whispered conversation between John and one of the other family friends about that issue exactly. Some hunters they knew like Bobby and Pastor Jim had permanent homes that they were only too happy to open to the boys.

John had rebuffed every single offer and Sam knew that the real reason for the refusal was his father's unwavering stance against any other hunter having that much contact with his kids. No matter how good the intentions, he didn't trust anyone that completely. His dad would rather have the boys alone in a motel room somewhere for weeks on end than let them live in someone else's house.

No reason to suspect that he would change his mind about that this late in the game.

Feeling a little sick to his stomach with a vague acknowledgment that it might be guilt churning up the nausea, he flipped through the pages as he again scanned the legal definitions and circumstances that would allow a minor such as himself to apply for emancipation from his father's custody. Just about every situation could be applied to his family if you squinted a little and Sam was pretty sure that with his fancy vocabulary he could make a successful argument for it.

It could get tricky.

The emancipation laws varied from state to state and since the Winchesters had no stable address Sam figured he might actually apply in Kansas since that is where he at least had a birth certificate on file. He would need to show that he could provide for himself, which he wasn't worried about. He was willing to find a crap job that would pay him enough to make a little money legally. There were state and federal funds he could apply for as an emancipated minor to cover the rest of his monthly expenses.

He could already prove that he knew how to live on his own. Dad and Dean had left him alone in various motels on several occasions over the years and he had been just fine. Able to feed himself from the stash of canned goods that got left for him. Get himself to school every day where he made good grades without parental influence. He kept his nose clean and had no juvenile record to speak against his character.

It wouldn't be hard to pitch John Winchester as an unfit parent either.

Dad was a barely functional alcoholic most of the time when he wasn't hunting. Not that Sam didn't grudgingly acknowledge that the man had good reason, but it still pissed him off that his father chose to subject himself repeatedly to those reasons. Even worse, he subjected his kids to those reasons as well, and Dean was already headed in the same direction even though Sam's big brother was only twenty-one with a whole life ahead of him.

His father could be a real mean drunk too. A little too much tequila and John would tear up a motel room faster than the boys could blink over small insignificant things. Since they were little Dean would shove Sam into the bathroom, out of harm's way, while he soothed their father and calmed him down.

Sam had been scared of his father's drunken rages when he was small, hiding in the bathtub with his knees pressed up against his chin and his hands clamped over his ears. Over time though he came to realize that John would never lash out at his kids. With that understanding Sam eventually grew bold enough that his fear turned to annoyance and disgust instead.

The holidays were the worst on Dad, ramping up his already rumbling undercurrent of anger, and they usually ended with broken furniture, cold congealing take out food and Dean settling their father on the couch in a booze induced stupor. Dean would try to act like nothing was wrong once Dad was passed out. He would smile and tease Sam as he ate cold food and put some stupid holiday movie on the crap TVs that came with the rooms.

Pretending that the mess wouldn't force them to leave the next day for the next shit room in the next shit town.

Unpleasant memories swirled around in his head as Sam leaned back into the couch, shutting his eyes tight and trying mightily to swallow back the bile cresting in his throat. It was the solution to his problem. No court in the country would deny him the right to be legally separated from his family with all of the bullshit in their lives that he had been forced to grow up with.

As he sat in the quiet stillness of Bobby's tumble down house, he already knew he would never be able to go through with it. Even if his father and brother managed to keep out of jail for the mile long list of crimes that would come to light once Sam had a court digging into his family life, they would hate him forever.

Sam wouldn't just be burning a bridge with his family by doing this. He would also be napalming the villages on each side of the bridge and then nuking the whole area from orbit just to be sure.

He decided that if he was really going to try to study law, he needed to start by being fair about his upbringing. As Aristotle once said _"The law is reason free from passion…Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all."_

For years Sam had resented and judged his father and brother for their dismissal of normalcy and acting lawlessly without regard for the damage they left in their wake. He wanted to do better than that, and see the world in black and white without graying the lines. However, without bringing his own prejudices and personal desires into the equation, he was forced to admit that his childhood wasn't abusive in the strictest sense of the word.

They may not have had a regular home but Dad had never let them be homeless. Sam had always had some kind of roof over his head and a warm bed to sleep in at night. Maybe the motels weren't great, with funky smells, stained carpets and rusting pipes, but they didn't live on the streets. The hot water might have been inadequate occasionally but they did always had enough running water to practice proper hygiene.

The boys never went hungry. Sometimes dinner came out of a can or a cereal box but there had been food on the table. Dean always tried hard to mix things up so their bland fare was a little more palatable than it might have been when money got tight.

His big brother also hoarded a little cash here and there to buy treats and toys when Sam would have a bad day at a new school and feel a little down. Their clothes were basic, and came from Goodwill and Army Surplus, but they were clean and respectable enough, if slightly faded.

Dad might have dragged them from school to school but they were well educated. Maybe Sam didn't get to join clubs and sports teams because the brothers were kept under lock down at the motels, but they were safe from strangers, both human and monster.

Their father gave them orders and sharply barked stinging critiques when they didn't work hard enough or got lazy with weapons or their studies. He gave them hugs too and taught them everything they knew from how to tie their shoelaces to how to handle themselves in a fight.

He was tough on them and demanding and they grew up saying 'Yes, Sir' and 'No, Sir', but if having good manners and respect for their elders was abuse, the southern half of the country was in deep shit.

Dad expected good behavior and obedience and sometimes Sam's smart mouth and stubbornness pushed his father far enough to give him a whipping that bruised his pride as much as his ass. Although John was more likely to make him run extra miles, or do double crunches, or copy endless passages out of archaic lore books to keep his youngest in line.

_"Yes, Your Honor. My dad punishes me with physical fitness and education."_

Tragic, Sam. Seriously, tragic.

Besides all of that there was Dean to consider.

Sam's big brother has taken care of him his entire life. He was a jerk most of the time. An obnoxious idiot with a big mouth that screwed around, made trouble and teased Sam mercilessly. He had terrible taste in music, a casual disregard for women and an unhealthily large porn collection. He made a mess of their toothpaste tubes and left dirty socks in the sink and pizza crusts under the beds that attracted bugs.

He also made sure that Sam had some nice things, _new things_. Even when Dean had to make do with secondhand or none at all for himself. He always had Sam's school records in good order for every move, fighting for his little brother to have the extra classes he wanted, and ignored his own studies to do Sam's share of whatever chores Dad left for them so Sam could read books for pleasure.

Dean gave Sam advice on girls, protection from schoolyard bullies and an example of how to act cool under pressure. A soothing washcloth on his forehead when he was sick, feverish and crying for his mom. A hug when he had nightmares and wanted his father's arms to make him feel safe again. He even taught Sam how ride to the bike he once used to take Sam to the ER after he broke his arm, and doled out an occasional smack on the back of the head to remind his brother to not be such a little asshole.

He stole Christmas gifts when Dad was MIA so Sam had something to open under a makeshift tree and took him to a field on July 4th to set off a case of fireworks that burned the field down.

Even if Sam could drum up enough resentment to drag his father through the mud, he could never do it to Dean. It was going to be bad enough when he left for college as it was.

Dean had been distracted lately. Ever since they were in Blue Earth at Pastor Jim's a few weeks ago. Sam couldn't quite put his finger on what, but he knew his brother was deep in contemplation over something. 

Maybe he had been hurt by Sam's request to be left behind. It hadn't been his intention to hurt his brother. That's the very last thing Sam would want to do. Dean had always given so much of himself, sacrificed so much of his own personal needs to give Sam whatever he could.

Honestly, Sam dreamed of talking his brother into settling down with him and living a normal life. He knew that it was too late for their father. The hunting life had taken over John Winchester long ago and it wasn't ever letting him out without bloodshed and death. Dad had promised them for years that once Mom was avenged it would be over, but Sam had stopped believing in that the minute their father allowed Dean to drop out of school to hunt.

Maybe Sam's departure would be enough to jolt his brother into the realization that it didn't have to be this way. Dean didn't have to give everything he had to a life that might get him dead before age thirty. The Winchesters weren't the only hunters, and why was everything their problem? Why did they have to sacrifice everything for other people? Why was it on them to save other families from danger?

John and Dean were Sam's family, and he loved them. They might not always think so, but he did. So why weren't they important enough to be spared? To be saved from harm? Hadn't they done enough? Hadn't their family already lost enough?

Sam certainly thought so.

*

Dad and Bobby arrived back at the salvage yard just a few minutes after Dean did himself. He hadn't even made it into the house before the Sierra was rumbling up the driveway and certainly hadn't been prepared for the complete train wreck of his father's face as he practically tumbled out of the driver's seat.

It didn't take a genius to see that the hunt had gone badly in some form or another.

Bobby nodded a greeting at him but said nothing as he lumbered inside. Dad's hair was wild and his dark eyes were troubled as he threw an arm around Dean's shoulders and pulled him in close. Dean could feel his father's face pressed into the side of his head, inhaling the comforting scent of his child. Something Dad hadn't done since Dean was a small boy. As if he needed the physical contact to assure himself that his son was okay.

"Dad?"

John didn't answer his son's panicked voice. He just pulled Dean tighter into his shoulder and heaved heavy breaths over the top of the boy's head, relieved to be assured of one son's safety before hurriedly dragging Dean towards the house.

Dean's heart picked up a few beats in fear but he kept his mouth shut as his father led him inside. Sam was curled up on the couch like a cat, intently reading a book, but when he saw the manner of their arrival he jumped up to his feet. Dad grabbed Sam with his other arm and for a moment crushed the brothers to his chest in a tremulous embrace.

It wasn't unusual to see his father messed up six ways from Sunday after a bad hunt but this kind of behavior was new and scary. Sam shot his brother a _what the fuck_ look, but all Dean could do was shrug, wide eyed and confused, as their father gripped them so tight that airflow was about to be compromised.

Collectively freaking out, they stood quietly for a moment and let their dad's trembling arms steady around them before Dean tried again.

"Dad? What's going on?"

They felt their father inhale a deep breath that he shakily released after holding it a moment. Then he was gently pushing them back, reaching up to palm both of them on the side of their faces as his eyes skipped back and forth between them like a slightly psychotic tennis match.

"S'ok, boys," he replied, trying for reassurance, and failing. "Everything is fine."

Dean frowned, lips pursed in an agitated scowl, caught between an overpowering need to understand what was so colossally fucked up that it had _John Winchester_ scared, and the ingrained auto response of unquestioning obedience to his father's commands.

Sam was just as rattled, and not nearly so obedient.

"Dad, what happened? Are you hurt?"

John affectionately pushed his younger son's hair away from the boy's face and shushed him, wanting to soothe away the fear that his turbulent arrival had put in Sam's hazel eyes.

"I'm okay, Sammy. Nothing to worry about kiddo."

Sam wanted to push. _Would_ have pushed under normal circumstances, but even the usually obstinate son was silenced by their father acting so rattled so he kept his mouth shut. He threw another worried glance over to Dean but his brother was studying John's face intently, knowing that their father was keeping something big from them.

Dad let go of them abruptly and shucked his jacket off, throwing it over the back of the couch where Sam had been reading before heading towards the kitchen.

"You boys look hungry. I'm gonna make you some dinner."

The brothers shared an incredulous look, because their father rarely cooked for them anymore. Not since Dean had fully taken over the job when the three of them were together, and Dad never cooked for them at Bobby's house anymore. Uneasily they followed John into the kitchen and watched in silence as he pulled pots onto the stove and rummaged around the cabinets. Bobby joined them after a few minutes and Dean shot him a questioning glare but the salvage man just slowly shook his head, refusing to provide information if they weren't getting it from their daddy.

John barely spoke through the meal he had painstakingly made for his children. The spaghetti he served was the favorite of both of the boys and normally they would have pounced on the bowl of pasta like it had been days since their last meal, but neither of them could drum up an appetite in the wake of their father's frightening behavior. There was a lot of pushing food around plates and wary, stolen looks under their father's watchful gaze.

Dad's few words were to fuss over them, encouraging them to eat what he dished onto their plates. He made them the buttery garlic toast that they usually fought over like a pack of wolves and poured them glasses of soda like they were still small. Dean struggled to remember the last time his father had insisted on him drinking just soda at dinner and the realization of that was another punch in the gut. Any other time they would have soaked up this kind of rapt attention after John's return from a long hunt, but tonight they were just scared.

Usually their father would read during the evening, deeply engrossed in whatever lore book he happened to be obsessing over at the time, but tonight he herded the boys into the living room and popped an old John Wayne movie into Bobby's ancient VCR. He dropped down near them into the faded corner chair and divided the next few hours between giving the movie an occasional glance and warily studying his sons as they perched uneasily on the sofa.

During the course of that movie, and the one that followed, both of the boys tried several attempts to get John to talk but they were quickly and firmly shut down by a hard stare from their father before it would disappear and his face softened again. The tension in the air crackled like electricity all night until finally John told them both to go to bed. Normally, at least Sam would balk at his father's order, but even he was eager to obey and escape the pressure cooker atmosphere of Bobby's living room.

"Dude, what the fuck?"

Sam shut the bedroom door and hissed at Dean who was getting undressed. His big brother sat heavily on his twin bed and was yanking off his boots looking shaken.

"I dunno. Something sure as hell happened on that hunt. I've haven't seen Dad that freaked in years."

Sam dropped down his his bed and folded his coltish legs up underneath him as he started to chew his pinkie nail.

"Think we could get Uncle Bobby to tell us?"

Dean shook his head as he stood back up, reflexively pulling Sam's hand away from his mouth as he walked over to the dresser to grab his sleep shirt and sweats.

"He's not saying shit. Which means it's seriously bad. Bobby only circles the wagons when Dad really puts his foot down about telling us stuff."

Sam's anxiety was building and his usual coping mechanism of anger was beginning to kick in. He sat on the bed and stewed for a few more minutes while his brother was in the bathroom washing up before coming back in and slipping under the blankets.

"He could just tell us what's going on," Sam spat, testily. "He doesn't have to be so goddamn secretive all the time."

On the other side of the room Dean let out a long suffering huff. He just didn't have the energy to worry about his father's uncharacteristic behavior and deal with his brother's pissy attitude at the same time.

"Dad's not talking, Sam. And getting upset about it isn't going to make him. Just back off until he cools down. I'll talk to him tomorrow."

Sam didn't say anything further but he wasn't letting go of it either. He grabbed his own pajamas and stomped into the bathroom to change and brush his teeth. Dean already had the light off when he re-entered their room, clearly discouraging any more attempts at conversation. He grudgingly climbed into his own bed and spent the next few hours tossing and turning. Sleep staying maddeningly far out of his reach.

/

John sat in the darkness of Singer's living room, a tumbler of whiskey dangling precariously from his long unsteady fingers. A million nightmare scenarios had infiltrated his mind over the past few hours, like a lifetime of horror movies playing on repeat in every crevice of his brain.

He knew that he had scared the shit out of his kids. His boys were used to their horrifically damaged father on a regular day but he worked hard to not let them see him quite this rattled. They needed him strong, to make them feel safe, and he didn't always succeed but he tried. God, he tried.

All the booze in the world was not going to take away the abject fear of the demon's words. No amount of whiskey could dampen the blood chilling questions of why Hell was so interested in his little boy, or why they were so determined to have him for their own.

The unholy creature had been so glib, _so sure_ , that Sammy was destined to be Hell's chosen one. Their very own Anti-Christ Superstar, so to speak. John had always known that Mary's death was at the hands of unspeakable evil, but to think that his baby son had some connection to that?

Ridiculous.

John's youngest was a petulant, trying, smart mouthed little pain in the ass, but he was a good boy. A kind boy. The sort of kid that refused to kill spiders in their motel rooms because it was cruel, and did yard chores for the disabled widow that had lived next door to them in Tulsa last year. He would rant and seethe at his father one minute and then cuddle up to John the next. Resting his head on Dad's lap, insecure and contrite, seeking love and forgiveness.

Sammy had his father's hot temper. That was all. 

John couldn't reconcile the idea that his sweet, incredibly smart boy had some lurking darkness inside of him. Something evil and unclean, biding its time until he would ultimately morph into a creature designed to lead Hell's army. 

Not John's child. 

Not his _Sammy_. 

Not while John had a say.

He'd march into Hell itself and kill all of those black eyed bastards with his bare hands before they even looked at his boy the wrong way.

John's head was throbbing and every breath he took in smelled of blood and sulfur and smoke. The melting cubes of ice he had tossed into his whiskey clinked as he raised the glass to his forehead and pressed the coldness against the pulsating heat in his temple.

The booze had already dimmed his senses in his attempt to quell the surging tide of panic in his chest. He knew better than to allow his awareness of his surroundings be compromised, but when he heard a noise in the hallway it startled him enough to drop the glass and have it go bouncing across the worn carpet.

"Dad?"

In the shadow of the threshold between the living room and the stairway John made out the gangling form of his youngest child. Sam's shoulders were hunched as he regarded his father warily. A habit he had been developing as he gained height. His son's hair was askew, jutting wildly in every direction, and his young face was scared and unsure in the pale reflected glow of the salvage yard's perimeter lights.

John brushed a hand down his face, subconsciously wanting to wipe away any trace of worry, fear or tears that might be lingering. He raised the hand and wordlessly beckoned his son over to him, pushing aside the pang of hurt he felt from the boy's momentary reluctance. 

It was his own fault. Sammy knew he was drinking and John wasn't always good to be around when he was deep in the bottle. Saddened by that thought, he watched his youngest cautiously amble over, nimbly avoiding the discarded glass and the ice now melting into the puddle of spilled whiskey.

Not brave enough to speak, Sam stood nervously a few inches from John's side and the weary father reached out to gently tug his son down to sit on the ottoman in front of his chair. They sat in silence for a few seconds, John's vision blurry and strained as his boy fidgeted, uncomfortable with his father's quiet scrutiny in the darkness of the room. Usually when Dad was drinking he was only quiet after he passed out.

"You need a haircut."

Sam's eyes widened from the warm rumble of his father's way out into left field statement, and he almost recoiled when John reached out to tuck a curl behind Sam's left ear. Somehow he managed to not shift away but he couldn't keep the confusion off of his face, or the automatic petulance out of his response as his dad smiled kindly at him.

"I like it longer."

John chuckled and palmed Sam's face for a second, rubbing a thumb across his left cheek affectionately. He nodded indulgently before dropping his hand back to the arm of his chair, aware of the searching concern in his boy's hazel eyes.

"Dad, are you okay?"

John leaned forward and clasped his hands together, resting his elbows on his knees as he nodded.

"I'm okay, kiddo."

Disbelief was written all over his child's face but John couldn't give Sam any more reassurances. It was taking all he had in him to stay sane right now, to not run around screaming in hysterical madness, and he didn't have the mental reserves to strengthen the mask he normally wore to protect his boys. Moving slowly, he reached out and took Sam's forearms in his hands and steeled his face, physically willing his son to believe his words.

"Sammy, you know I will always protect you boys, right? I will always do whatever I have to to keep you safe. Your brother, too. We won't let anything happen to you."

Sam subconsciously pulled back a little but was met with resistance, his father's grip keeping him close. John's words were meant to be comforting but they sent a chill up the boy's spine irregardless.

"Yes, sir. I know," he responded fidgeting, feeling a little like a trapped animal in John's grasp.

Dad seemed to finally sense his discomfort and he loosened his hold on his son's arms, allowing the boy the freedom to pull away, but Sam didn't want to completely break contact with his father so he stilled his movements and let John rest his hands on Sam's for a minute.

"It's late, Son. You need to get to bed."

Sam frowned, reluctant to leave his father in this condition, but John nodded tiredly at him and he eventually forced himself up to his feet. On impulse he leaned over and hugged his dad, trying to pretend that he couldn't feel a shaky desperation in his usually rough and tough father's arms.

The sensation did nothing to calm his fears for his father's mental state.

/

By the time Sam got up the next morning, Dean and Dad were already gone. Bobby was working in the kitchen with no idea as to their whereabouts but he did tell Sam that they had promised to be back by lunchtime.

Distracted, Sam spent the morning trying unsuccessfully to read _Slaughterhouse-Five_. For some reason Dean had been very insistent that it be the next book on Sam's summer reading list. He couldn't concentrate on the words because he kept checking the driveway for his brother's car to arrive. Dean had promised to talk to Dad today, and after Sam's strange encounter with their father the previous evening he was on pins and needles to see if his brother could pry out of their father exactly what had the man so spooked since his return.

The morning passed excruciatingly slowly, and it was already after one by the time he finally heard the telltale growling of the Impala's engine. Throwing the book aside he loped out to the porch to greet them, only to see his father approaching the house alone. Dad looked a little less stressed than he had the previous day but his eyes were still tight, his face pinched. He forced a smile for Sam and affectionately ruffled his hair as he met him in the doorway.

"Your brother is waiting for you in the car kiddo. He wants to take you for a ride."

Sam started to protest but his father shook his head, jerking his chin in the direction of the driveway. He gently turned Sam towards the Impala and gave him a playful smack on the butt, making it clear it wasn't a suggestion. Pursing his lips in annoyance, Sam obeyed and headed out to the car, the strains of _Back in Black_ pounding out of the Impala's open windows as his brother sang along. He threw Dean a questioning glance as he slid in the passenger seat and pulled the door shut only to have his brother turn the volume up higher as he put the car in gear and roared back down the drive.

"Where are we going?" Sam yelled over the music as they cruised towards town.

Dean seemed to be in high spirits, arm limp and hand loose as he steered, bouncing a little in his seat to the beat of AC/DC.

"Wanna show you something."

Sam rolled his eyes because, seriously? It would really be nice to have at least one member of his family answer a straight fucking question. Still, his brother was clearly too happy at the moment and considering how tense last night had been Sam wasn't going to press too hard and rock the boat. He decided to just lean back and let Dean do as he pleased for the moment, enjoying the warm sunshine of a beautiful South Dakota summer day.

They drove for another fifteen or so minutes as Dean made his way towards an unfamiliar residential area. The houses in the neighborhood were small but they were well maintained for the most part. People were outside, mowing their lawns and watering flowers. Kids were riding their bikes and playing games in the street in the low traffic area. It made for a pleasant suburban picture and Sam wondered exactly what they were doing here.

Eventually Dean pulled the car up into the roughly paved driveway of a small two story house. Sam frowned in confusion as his brother got out of the car and jerked his head in the direction of the house, clearly wanting Sam to join him. He got out of the car warily, instinctively looking around to see if anyone was noticing their presence.

"Dean, what are we doing here?"

His brother smiled widely and his green eyes were sparkling with mischief as Sam walked up to join him in the yard.

"C'mon, Sammy. Let's see what's inside."

Sam jerked back in horror, suddenly not wanting anything to do with whatever his brother had in mind. Were they really going to break into a house in broad daylight?

"It's a little early in the day for a B&E charge, don't you think?" he hissed at Dean's retreating back.

Dean laughed and waited for Sam on the porch. When Sam refused to join him Dean pulled a set of keys from his front pocket and dangled them, grinning madly.

"Welcome home, kiddo."


	5. September 2000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Sam begin a "normal" life

The most awesome thing about their new home was the two full bathrooms.

Sammy was practically a chick considering how much time he spent getting ready in the morning. Of course, that was to be expected when your little brother had a _My Little Pony_ mane of hair that had to be maintained.

Well, when you had a little brother that _used_ to have a _My Little Pony_ mane of hair anyways.

_House Rules #26_ now prohibited said little brother from having hair longer than two inches above his shirt collar. Sam had tried unsuccessfully to argue the merits of that particular decree when Dad had sat them both down to go over the list of non-negotiable terms of their school year residence in Sioux Falls.

Sammy had bitched. 

John was unmoved. 

Sammy had crossed his arms and glared. 

John had crossed his and cocked a threatening eyebrow, and by the time it was all over Sam's allowable hair length had been shortened by another inch.

Theoretically, the _House Rules_ were drawn up as security measures to appease John that his boys would be safe and careful in the first long term home they would be living in since the family house in Lawrence. They also contained a fair number of rules designed to impress upon Sam the reality that his upbringing, though strict in its own unique way, had been fairly lax as to a number of restrictions that _normal_ kids were subjected to by their parents.

Although Dean was pretty sure that Dad had added the haircut rule for his own amusement to just to piss Sam off.

To everyone's satisfaction, now that the boys had access to two showers in the small house it meant that after their early morning run _(House Rules #3)_ , Dean could jump in, wash up, and be dressed without needing to wait for Sam and his never-ending grooming regimen to finish. Which also meant a ceasefire to the daily fights between the brothers that usually ended up with threats, slammed doors, snapped towels and noogies.

The fact that the second full bath was down in their slightly _Silence of the Lambs_ style basement did nothing to dull Dean's happiness to use it.

What had been creatively described to him and Dad by the landlady as an 'in-law suite' was, in reality, a partially finished concrete room with a utilitarian toilet and shower room off to the side. Dean didn't know who these in-laws were, but he suspected that they were the kind you didn't want to feel welcomed.

Dean had been initially excited with the description of the house that made the claim of it having three bedrooms. One the primary requirements of his _Sammy-is-normal_ plan was that his little brother finally have a room all of his own. Without a father or big brother, or both, a foot away and tripping over each other. So he had been a little disappointed to see that the third bedroom was more of a hopeful concept of renovation than an actual room.

Surprisingly, Dad hadn't been too bent out of shape about it. Dean was already mentally measuring the smaller second floor bedroom to see if another bed could be added, perfectly willing to share a room with his old man during John's occasional stays. His father had point blank refused, reminding his eldest son that he had bunked down in worse places than a stark gray basement. Only getting Dean to sign the lease when John assured his boy that it wouldn't take much to fix it up a little.

Three weeks later Dean was still having a hard time processing how grudgingly agreeable Dad had eventually become in considering the new living arrangement. Not that it hadn't taken some doing on Dean's part but, after the initial atomic bomb level blowout, John had surprised his oldest by pointing out several basic flaws in his plan that Dean had never even thought of.

The firstborn Winchester brother had never needed to have practical experience of setting up an actual long term residence so it was a good thing that his father, although woefully out of practice as a civilian, still remembered the basics.

/

The night Dad and Bobby returned from the hunt that his father still refused to talk about Dean lay awake all night in a fretful and contemplative restlessness. Unlike Sammy, Dean had long ago learned how to feign sleep so that his father and brother would never know how troubled his thoughts occasionally were in the dark hours of the night. It was laughable how unsuccessfully his little brother tried to trick Dean during fights at bedtime over the years.

Dean had been putting the kid to bed his entire life and was usually sleeping inches away from him. 

He knew every breathing sound and facial twitch Sammy had. Little brother hadn't even been trying to hide his turmoil that night, and when he crawled out of bed and slipped downstairs, Dean was alert and trailing him instantly. John was clearly in a bad way, and the last thing their family needed that night was an emotionally turbocharged war between the oldest and youngest Winchesters.

Bobby's place was one of the closet things the boys had to a home growing up. With Pastor Jim's house and the Impala herself ranking neck and neck along with it. Dean knew every creaking floorboard and loose stair tread and was as stealthy as a Navy SEAL thanks to his father's training. He silently ghosted Sam's movements as he went down to the living room, taking pains to keep himself hidden. Normally Dean would never willingly intrude on a private conversation between his father and brother, but Dad had him on edge with his erratic behavior that evening.

Between his father struggling to keep his panic in check, and Sammy's almost childlike hesitation and fear, Dean could barely draw enough air into his lungs to keep from passing out in the shadowy darkness of the hallway. He managed to dart back up to the shared bedroom before his little brother sneaked back in, smoothing out his breathing with a well practiced calming exercise even as his body lay as tense as a bow string under the summer weight blanket.

After a while Sam had fallen into a fitful slumber but Dean had lain awake and alert until the first rays of dawn filtered in through the faded bedroom curtains. Moving soundlessly, so as not to disturb what paltry rest his little brother was getting, Dean quickly donned his sweats and sneakers, and when Dad headed for the front door for his early morning run his oldest son was dressed and waiting to join him.

They didn't speak as they stretched in the crisp morning air, the yard dogs idly watching them with minimal interest as they lazed about on the front porch. Years of habit kept their warm up in sync without needing to exchange words, and when they were limbered up father and son shot off onto the road. They moved in unison as they ran. A companionable silence between them. A shared sense of urgency propelling them.

Dean welcomed the clarity of thought the adrenaline brought him. The feeling that at least this one thing was manageable, in control. They ran until his muscles burned and streams of heavy sweat pulled the whiskey out of John's system. The sun had moved noticeably higher on the horizon when they made it back to the salvage yard, the house quiet with the other occupants still asleep. John helped his son stretch as they cooled down and eventually they had dropped to sit side by side on the porch steps.

In silence they contemplated their own thoughts, occasionally interrupted by the sounds of a passing car or chirping from the birds in the trees surrounding the yard. Dean didn't know how much time had passed as he struggled to approach his father with his concerns. He easily recognized the look on John's face as his dad absently twisted his wedding ring. A unconscious habit the man always had when he was beyond stressed about something.

Eventually Dad had broken their quiet reverie by nudging Dean's knee, jerking his chin towards a group of banged up cars across the yard from the porch.

"You recognize that car, Son? Blue, second from the right."

Dean looked up and squinted in the sunlight, hesitating for the briefest of seconds before answering.

"Yes, sir. That's a seventy-two Camaro."

John had nodded, pride of his son's knowledge mingled with the sadness of painful memories. His smile was wistful as he clapped his son on the shoulder.

"Good job, Kiddo."

The heavy silence returned for a few more seconds and Dean stared off into the distance before being brought back by his father's deep rumbling voice.

"Your mother had one just like it once."

Dean had turned towards his dad in surprise, because it was hard to get him to speak about Mom unless he was deep in a bottle with a boatload of tequila loosening his tongue. But one look on his father's face told Dean that he should shut his cakehole and let the man reminisce.

"She loved that thing. Every once in while,she would just take off for a few days. Even after you came along."

John threw his son an affectionate look when the boy started in surprise over that new tidbit of information. He winked and nudged Dean's shoulder with his own.

"Bet you didn't know your old man occasionally had diaper duty with just you and me."

Startled, Dean shook his head, looking so achingly young that John reached over and ran a hand across the top of the boy's short cropped hair.

"Til you were about a year old. Then one day, she just stopped. Said it was time. I didn't know what she meant by it."

John's voice had an undertone of long term confusion as he turned away, rubbing his hands together, his brow furrowed in memories.

"Put the car up for sale and we used the money to invest in the garage with Mike. She never talked about it again."

With that John grew quiet again and Dean wasn't going to push. These moments of caring and sharing about life before were rare and usually only reared themselves up during times of great turmoil in his dad's life.

Dean hadn't wanted to add to his father's worries, because God knew the man obviously had enough on his mind as it was. But John's heartfelt declarations to Sam in the late hours of the previous evening had unnerved Dean to the point that he instinctively knew that his window of opportunity to make his case was rapidly closing.

Dad was scared. 

Not just scared. _Petrified_. 

Of what, his oldest son had no idea, but he needed to man up and take a last stand before John bolted again. Taking his kids with him to parts unknown and destroying all possibility of the carefully constructed proposal that had been at the forefront of Dean's mind since the car ride to Blue Earth.

He had practiced a dozen time as to how he would broach the topic. What persuasive opening salvo he could volley that would sway his unbending father to positively consider his words. As Dean grew older, John was taking his son's opinions on jobs seriously because he respected the hunter that Dean was becoming.

When it came to Sam their dad was less likely to yield, even though Dean knew that John was perfectly aware of how much better his oldest was in tune with his youngest. Whether it was a fear of losing his hold over his children, or a reluctance to acknowledge them as growing up, Dean didn't know. 

What he did know was that Sam was slowly but surely slipping away from them, and Dean couldn't imagine a life without his little brother by his side.

John was staring off into the distance as they sat, shoulders touching, his hair as dark and wild as Sam's ever was. Dean nervously rubbed his damp palms on the sides of his sweats, fingers clenching repeatedly in the soft folds of the fabric until his father looked over at him expectantly. Calmly waiting against the backdrop of sunrise for his son to finally speak his mind. Dean had swallowed hard and braced himself for the fallout.

"Dad, we're gonna lose Sammy."

After that the rest of that morning had been a surreal blur. That one simple sentence brought a raging river of emotions flooding over his father's face. Dean had begun speaking quickly, his practiced arguments spilling out of his mouth in an emotional ramble that tripped over his tongue without his consent or any rhyme or reason. The whole plan burst out of him like a punch, and when he was finally spent he quieted, chest heaving and begging with his eyes for understanding while his father sat in a speechless daze.

For about five seconds.

Then John had raged. 

He roared, literally _roared_. 

He was furious by what he perceived to be Dean's betrayal of going behind his back and making plans for the brothers without even attempting to consult him. The earlier peace of their shared morning forgotten, a string of vicious and unfounded accusations spewed forth from his mouth, laying waste to his firstborn. Dean had physically reeled from each verbal blow like a punch drunk boxer on his last leg in the ring. Unable to fight back and curling in on himself to protect whatever vital organs he could from the vocal onslaught.

When the _Dad_ in John regained control, his son was a shuddering mess unable to meet his father's eyes. Holding his gut with both arms as he sat hunched on the stair and swallowing repeatedly as he struggled to regain his composure. Whispering crushing, desperate apologies, and watery pleas for understanding. Looking so much like a kicked pup that a wave of stomach acid burned its way up John's throat from the guilt of his attack.

Dean had been petrified to even suggest such drastic action. John had heard it in his boy's voice as it quivered with a wet undercurrent of tears when he told his father what the man had already known.

That they were in danger of losing their youngest. That Sammy needed to be kept safe and close to them.

John's own fears released themselves in the wholly brutal tirade he had lashed out at his son. Blind panic that their world as a family was shifting, and the Winchester patriarch didn't seem to be able to wrest control over that eventuality from anyone including, apparently, his kids.

Almost immediately John had reined his anger back in. Faced with the devastation and defeat on his son's beautiful young face, looking so much like his mother that it physically hurt, he had reached out to put an arm around his boy's shaking shoulders and drew him close, relieved when Dean allowed it without a trace of recrimination in his eyes.

Because that's what this child always did. 

Dean was the family sounding board. The means through which the oldest and youngest Winchesters vented their multitude of frustrations over life in general. They ranted and raved and laid all of their accumulated crap at Dean's feet for him to sort out and deal with because that was what they had come to expect.

It took a lot of energy to stand on the moral high ground after all, and usually John and Sam couldn't be bothered with other things.

And Dean had always accommodated them, pushing aside his own frustrations and fears for the good of the family and refusing to see the damage it was doing to his own psyche. Because denial was a river in Egypt, and Dean Winchester was its King.

Hot tempered, loose tongued and occasionally mean spirited, John and Sam both had a bad tendency to lash out at the one person who lived for their happiness and safety. John wasn't so obtuse that he didn't see it happen, didn't feel the heavy weight of guilt that came from unloading his stress driven anxiety on his oldest son. Because deep down he knew that Dean would always forgive him. Always excuse the lapses in John's tenuous grip on fatherhood because his firstborn had nothing but unconditional love for his father and little brother.

Even when, _especially when_ , they didn't deserve it. Dean's singular regard for his family was absolute and unwavering.

Ultimately, that was what had turned the tide for John that early morning.

The Marine turned Hunter kicked in. Always calculating and planning, John backed down for the first time ever and consented to the overall idea. 

If his agreement only came after his son's fervent assurances that Dean had spoken of his plans with absolutely no one until approaching his dad, John wouldn't admit that to anyone. It didn't speak to John's credit if he admitted that his anger was partially fueled by originally suspecting that others in their family circle were aware of the idea before he himself was privy.

By the time Bobby was awake and brewing coffee, John was fine tuning some of the logistics and adding many conditions of his own. Bobby's offer of his own place was politely declined but he did have a contact for housing. A woman nearby was renting out a house that her tenant had recently vacated because of a job transfer. She knew the score on hunting because the ghost of her teenage son had been haunting her for almost a year after his death in a car accident. Bobby had salted and burned the bones of the boy when he had become vengeful. The salvage man had given her The Talk and kept in touch for the past few years.

Now moving with purpose, John strong armed an early morning showing with the landlady who was flirted with and flattered into a small monthly discount by John's considerable charm, and the added incentive of the roll of bills for first and last that he had acquired through the risky maneuver of cash advances from his two current credit cards.

Dean had felt guilty from the knowledge of how strapped for funds his father would be for a while after maxing out his current credit but Dad had insisted. Stressing to his son in no uncertain terms that he would be covering the monthly rent for his kids. Nothing was going to induce Dean to strip his father of the man's pride, so he hadn't pushed, comforted with the assurance that his father would be saving on his own motel expenses with an occasional stay at the house.

Because he had already spent the past few weeks in the planning stages, Dean had been aggressively hustling to build up a bankroll. 

Taking some considerable chances that would have earned him ear blistering, or even possibly ass blistering, reprimands if his father had any idea of how fast and loose he had been playing. It had been his intention to present the idea to his father as a _fait accompli_ , proving that the finances were manageable, but John was firm about how much he would be covering himself.

There were still plenty of other expenses for Dean to worry about.

For safety reasons Sam was to be enrolled in a private Catholic school with a manageable tuition that could be paid on a monthly basis. Dean had taken a stab at working up a rough budget and the school could be afforded if they scrimped. The house was partially furnished and they would be able to make do until they could slowly acquire extras. The utilities were all on budget plans and their landlady had consented to pay the monthly water bill in exchange for the boys mowing her grass and shoveling her drive when it snowed.

The boys would spend the school week at home in Sioux Falls, following the _House Rules_ and keeping up with their daily training regimen. On the weekends they would drive to meet John to back him up on hunts if he was within a reasonable distance.

Dean was pretty confident that his father would ensure that he would be relatively close by for the duration of the year, and it was this thought that had the older brother hoping that maybe time and distance during the week would lessen the tensions between his two family members. Enough that when Sam graduated his resentment of John and Dean and their life together as a family wouldn't be strong enough to make him run away again.

Money was going to be tight. 

Fraudulent cards wouldn't fly in a town where they were establishing a permanent residence. Hustling locally wasn't an option either, although the weekend trips would hopefully bring opportunity for extra cash. Dean had known he would need to find a real job and he was happy to do it if it meant keeping Sammy close and making the kid smile. He satisfied himself that he could hunt on the weekends, needing it like he needed oxygen.

But his brother came first.

Originally Dean had planned on applying at a few of the local garages, because Dad had taught him everything there was to know about cars and he loved to work on them, but then Bobby offered to employ him at the salvage yard. It wasn't a pity employment, no matter what Dean originally suspected.

When he voiced this concern, Bobby had whipped his ball cap off and smacked the back of Dean's head with it, telling the boy with the cripplingly low self esteem that his yard was chock full of vehicles itching to be rebuilt and sold for a good chunk of cash, and that Dean wasn't just as good as his daddy, he was _better_. A goddamn genius of Auto Mechanics, and the fervent declaration had caused Dean's entire face and neck to blush crimson.

With that settled Dean had a steady paycheck that was probably more than generous under the circumstances. A boss that would understand Dean's need to work around a school schedule and a hunting trip. As well as a work space where he could wear his Colt without a problem in the safety of a heavily warded environment.

It was this last perk that had John biting his tongue about the jealousy he was harboring over the idea that it wouldn't him working side by side with his boy on a rebuild.

The safety of his children trumped John's need to be the center of their universe. In another life, one where there were no fires or demons or evil, John would have passed his garage down to his talented eldest. 

If that was what Dean had wanted. 

Or he would have proudly paid for his firstborn to go to college and become an engineer or architect or whatever else might have caught his fancy, because Dean was every bit as smart as Sammy and could have been anything besides the highly capable hunter he was evolving into.

In another life John would have not only supported Sam's passion for soccer, he would have volunteered to coach the team. He would have cheered him on at the academic competitions that his youngest always seemed to qualify for, but could never attend because they would move again before they were held. John would struggle and puzzle like any parent trying to help his kid with book reports and test reviews instead of yelling and threatening orders over research.

Those possibilities were forever lost, but he could still give his boys this one year of stability.

/

Dean heard the upstairs shower turn off, propelling him to amble into the kitchen to make breakfast. Even _Princess Samantha_ would be done primping by the time the food was cooked, and big brother was going to make sure that the string bean ate a decent meal on his first day at the new school. He was still getting used to the concept of cooking full meals, finally having an actual kitchen instead of a motel kitchenette with a hot plate.

By the time Sam came tromping down the stairs hefting his new backpack already full to bursting, with what exactly Dean had no clue, the whole house was blanketed in the heady aroma of breakfast. Sam loped into the kitchen, dropped his backpack on one of the chairs and pulled open the fridge. Grabbing the juice carton and taking a long swig as he stood standing with the door open. Immediately, Dean's hand came up and cuffed his brother on the back of his head.

"Glass!"

"Ow!" Sam protested, scowling as he rubbed the sting away. "What was that for?"

It's not like his big brother hadn't done that little maneuver himself a million times over the years. At least Sam was careful not to backwash, unlike Dean who was so gross sometimes that Sam would drink questionable tap water over what was lurking in the motel mini-fridges.

"You weren't raised in a barn, Sammy," Dean grumbled, snagging a clean glass from the cabinet and shoving at him.

Sam huffed derisively and rolled his eyes. _Pretty close to it sometimes_ , he thought uncharitably, even as he filled the glass from the container he still held.

"We're respectable now," Dean informed him, the lilt in his voice a tad on the grandiose side as he scooped food from the pans on the stove onto two plates.

There was a huge shit eating grin on his big brother's face as he placed the plates on the table, and Sam couldn't help but laugh as he replaced the juice container and grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter. Flopping down in his usual chair, he took one look at the breakfast in front of him and felt his stomach flip from the heavy duty case of nerves that had been slowly building up since he first woke up. Groaning a little, he pushed the plate away, eliciting a frown from his brother.

"Eat, Sam."

Dean's voice was patient, but unyielding. Sam peeked up at him from under his bangs, still long enough to cover his eyes even though the back was cut short, puppy dog eyes in full force.

"My stomach is queasy," he said, trying to keep the whine out of his voice and failing. "Besides," he countered, glancing at the wall clock, "we're going to be late."

Big brother had been dealing with Sam's petulance since the kid was in diapers so he wasn't fooled. He tapped meaningfully on the side of the plate before fixing himself a cup of coffee.

"You're nervous, not sick. We have plenty of time. And everyone loves bacon, Sammy. _Eat_."

Defeated, Sam picked up the fork and threw his brother his best bitchface, scooping up some scrambled eggs and forcing them in his mouth. If he was inwardly pleased that Dean had made them with milk, the way Sam liked them, he wasn't going to let it show because his brother was a pushy jerk and wasn't going to get the satisfaction of being right.

He let out an affronted sniff, annoyed because his brother just smiled at him knowingly, and then grabbed two pieces of bacon from Dean's plate and shoved them in his mouth, daring the older boy to do something about it.

"Like I wasn't expecting that." Dean smirked and went back to the stove, pulling more bacon strips from the pan to throw on his own plate before dumping the rest on his brother's. "Who do you think you are dealing with here, kiddo?"

Fifteen minutes later Dean herded his little brother into the car, bulging backpack and all, and headed towards the school. Sam had grown pensive in the passenger seat, subconsciously resisting the urge to chew on his pinkie nail as he picked at an invisible thread on his new khakis. Dean glanced over and smiled at the kid, looking sharp and grown up in his new threads.

That was another benefit of the private school. 

_Uniforms_. 

Pale blue polo shirts with the school crest and khakis for the boys in the warmer months, with v-neck pullover sweaters with the crest for the winter. Everyone dressed the same and there would be no visual clues that Sam's family wasn't as materially well off as anyone else. Which was one of the things Dean knew his little brother was self conscious about at every new school they had attended.

Sam had always hated the stigma that had come with thrift store clothes that might have already been passed down from his older brother in the first place. The shirts and khakis had been another expense but Dean had it covered, and even had enough left in the clothing budget he had put aside to get Sam some new street wear to use on his downtime. Just some basics from the local Target, but they were brand new and not necessarily the usual sturdy hunter's gear. It was important that Sam feel like a normal kid Monday thru Friday.

Dean pulled the Impala into the school parking lot at precisely 7:45. The first bell was at 8:00 and classes went until 2:45. There was an extracurricular period from 3:00 to 3:45, and then a second one from 4:00 to 4:45. Dean would return at precisely 5:00 to pick Sam up, and not a minute later. _House Rules #15_.

He glided the car over to the drop off curb and put the gear shift in park, letting Baby's engine idle. Sam was still in the passenger seat, staring at the front door of the school like he was getting ready to go to the dentist's office. Clearly, big brother was going to have to shove him a little out the door.

"Got your books?"

"Yeah."

"Pencils?"

"Yeah."

"Knife?"

"Dean..."

"Geek boy pocket protector?"

" _Dean.._ "

Sam turned around and shot him a heated scowl, but at least the kid had stopped the wary stalker stare at the door. There were a few dozen other students milling around the entrance smiling and talking. As the car purred a group of very pretty young ladies in sinfully short plaid skirts bounced by Sam's window and Dean wagged his eyebrows at his brother suggestively.

"Catholic schoolgirls, Sammy. Every teenage boy's wet dream. Go get'em, Romeo. Make the Winchester name proud."

Sam glared with the long practiced impatience over his brother's general male slutty behavior. Dean just grinned because he loved to get his prudish little brother riled up. One of these days the kid was going to realize that he had grown out of the awkward nerd in the short body phase and into a fairly decent looking guy.

Not as devilishly handsome as his older brother, of course, because there were only just so many hot genes for their parents to pass on and Dean was claiming the lion's share for himself.

But the younger boy was obviously nervous and struggling with the ability to open the freakin' door, so Dean decided to back off.

"Yeah, okay, Sammy. But you do have your knife though, right?"

Dean's voice went from teasing to serious, his little brother's ability to defend himself primary on his list of concerns. Not that Sammy really needed the knife to protect himself. Underneath his gangling, shy, cherubic-like exterior, Sam Winchester possessed a large repertoire of self defense skills that would make grown men wary.

"Yeah, Dean, I've got it," he sighed, avoiding his brother's penetrating stare and gazing out the window towards the flood of other students.

He didn't want to let his big brother see the wave of anxiety that passed over his face as he realized that there would be no second chances to make a first impression this year. That had been the one check mark in the plus column of their frequent moves.

There had been instances at various schools when things hadn't gone well, because kids could be cruel to outsiders, and Sam was nerdy and quiet, usually keeping to himself. There had been a lot of teasing over the years that developed into something more aggressive. The only comforting thought at times like that had been the certainty that he would be leaving soon.

Dean reached into his back pocket and grabbed his wallet. Pulling a twenty from the billfold, he shoved it towards Sam.

"Here's a couple of bucks for lunch. Make sure you eat something, okay?"

Sam rolled his eyes but he took the offered bill and smiled. "Yeah, I will. Thanks."

At a loss of what else to say, Dean absently rubbed his hands on the steering wheel. Sam was looking at the school as if he were a man on his way to his execution now. For some reason Dean had been sure that his little brother would have leaped from the car like a gazelle as soon as they pulled into the parking lot.

"You know, Sammy, you don't have to do this if you don't want to, " he started cautiously, trying hard to gauge his brother's mood. "Just say the word, kiddo. It's not too late to change your mind."

Finally startled out of his thoughts, Sam looked at his older brother as if he had just sprouted another head.

"What? No. No, I want to do this, Dean," he responded quickly, his voice taking on a slightly higher pitch in its insistence.

Holding his hands up in surrender, Dean sought to calm the kid down.

"Alright, no need to get your panties in a twist. Just don't want you to feel like you don't have a choice here."

Sam took a deep breath, relaxing a little. His brother always had his back, no matter what. Even with all Dean had been forced to do to get Dad to agree to this arrangement, with all the work it had taken to get the little rented house set up, Sam knew that if he did say the word his brother would pack everything up and take him back to join their father without a word of complaint.

He had always put Sam's wants and needs first, regardless of what it did to him personally. The knowledge of that lifelong constant both warmed Sam's heart and crushed him with guilt.

"Well, go if you're going then, Sammy. Can't have you late on your first day."

"It's _Sam_ ," the boy insisted, the dark eyebrows on his elfin face narrowed in irritation.

"Yeah, whatever, bitch," Dean teased smirking, gently shoving his little brother towards the door.

Sam scowled and shoved back. "Cut it out, jerk," he hissed as he grabbed for the door handle.

"Hey!" Dean called as Sam got out of the car. "Remember, I'll be here at five, so don't keep me waiting."

Sam sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I know," he answered wearily, bristling at reminder of the laundry list of rules that John had drummed into both of their heads over the last few weeks.

The blatant unfairness of them smacked Sam in the face every time he had to obey one. When Dean was seventeen he had already been in charge of them both, on his own, for weeks at time, for _years_. Sam, it seemed, was now incapable of getting himself home from school on his own these days, even though an activities bus could drop him off a block from their house.

"Have fun, Sammy," Dean said, his voice much more soft than before.

Sam gave him a half smile, his hazel green eyes lighting up for the first time that morning in appreciation of all that his brother was doing to make today possible.

"Yeah. Thanks."

Both brothers knew that the two little words held more meaning than just appreciation of Dean's previous sentiment.

Dean watched the kid's retreating back until Sam was at the entrance. His little brother, ever the gentleman held open the door for two of the girls from the little gaggle that had passed by earlier, and they smiled hugely at him, clearly appreciative of his thoughtfulness and cute face. Even from the distance, Dean could see his brother blush, but he also smiled back and chatted with them as he followed them inside.

"That's my boy."

Dean smiled fondly and put the car in gear, driving slowly to make one full pass of the school grounds as he scanned the area to make sure that he didn't catch any hint of a threat.

He and Dad had already scoped out the entire campus on more than one occasion in the previous weeks to get a good feel for the layout, because one could never be too cautious. Finally satisfying himself that Sam was as safe as he was going to get today, he pulled back out into the street, the Impala's engine growling as it tore up the asphalt underneath him.

/

John's whole body was thrumming with a caffeine buzz as he drove. It was a long drive to New Mexico but Singer had been insistent that the Navajo seer he had dealings with in the past might be able to work a ritual giving them insight as to the demon's cryptic and disturbing rants. John hadn't wanted to be so far away from his kids right now and his frenzy to keep close to them had him struggling to make the trip.

In the end his desperate need for information won out. He had left his boys as safe as they could be anywhere at the moment except for right at his side. The knowledge that their long term safety depended on his ability to permanently neutralize the threat against his youngest son was currently superseding all other desires he had for their well being and immediate proximity.

The threats to his kids weren't just strictly arbitrary anymore. If the black eyed bastard was to be believed, however minutely, Hell itself was circling for his Sammy like vultures about to descend on carrion. The boys needed more than salt lines and cats eye shells and the generalized hope that bouncing around enough would slow down any filth that hunted the little family.

As much as John disliked the idea of them stationary at the little house in Sioux Falls, _and really the entire concept made his trigger finger twitchy_ , at least the place could be protected far more than a random motel room.

John was pretty sure that they had wiped out the neighborhood Walmart of its cheap area rugs. Every room in the little house had one. Not for aesthetic reasons of course, although they did warm up the overall look of the place. They also covered the carefully spray painted devil's traps that now graced as much of the floor space as John could manage. If one of Hell's minions did manage to infiltrate his children's home, the bastard wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon.

A sympathetic landlady also meant that John had no compunction about carving a multitude of warding and protection sigils in the wooden trim that ran around the edges of the doors, ceilings and floors. Dean had been adamant about keeping the visible damage to a minimum. A stubborn insistence that had made John's temper flare in annoyance over the boy's priorities, but eventually his son's calm reasoning had reminded John that while Sammy's safety was paramount, there was also the equally important consideration of keeping him with them.

Sam might balk at feeling comfortable inviting friends home if the place looked like something the Manson family might live in. And while John was perfectly okay with his youngest not encouraging strangers visiting the house, he had grudgingly agreed with Dean that it was far better that whatever socializing Sammy did was best engaged in at the protected house rather than somewhere else that could leave him vulnerable.

Thick salt lines had permanent residence artfully hidden behind sheer drapes on all the windows. A handful of ceramic beaded rosaries thrown into the house's water tank with the appropriate blessings ensured that his boys would be drinking and bathing in holy water all year. Dean knew to offer any visiting school friend a nice glass of ice water to welcome kids into their home.

Sam himself now sported a silver bracelet _(House Rules #21)_ that he was forbidden by his father to remove which bore the marking of Saint Amabilis of Riom on the front. The patron saint against fires and snakebites, he was also invoked against demonic possession. During John's meeting with Sam's school principal it had been made extremely clear that his son be allowed to wear it at all times. Sam's mother had died in a fire when he was an infant, it was explained, and the boy's comfort and spirituality depended on the security the medal brought him.

Faced with such a firm and determined demand the principal had consented, quite possibly because John Winchester's basic presence could scare the shit out of any normal man. John didn't feel the need to inform the priest that the underside of the flat silver badge contained actual anti-possession engravings and not the just theoretical hope of them.

He couldn't remember the last time he had met with a school official for one of his boys. They moved so much that there wasn't usually time for any reason to get friendly with the locals. Dean had the drill down to a science when it came to enrolling himself and his brother by the time he was eleven years old. John didn't let himself often dwell on the niggling little fact that he dumped all of the school responsibilities on his oldest son.

Dean's suggestion of Holy Rosary Academy for his brother had been nothing short of brilliant on the boy's part, John had to admit. He wouldn't have given a moment's consideration to his kids staying put for a year without his eldest son's convincing argument about the increase in Sam's overall safety from the supernatural by being a student at a school with the unique feature of having the entire campus built on consecrated ground.

Apparently Singer had mentioned it once out of hand as an unusual occurrence, and Dean, sponge that his was, had filed away that trivia for later use. Even Catholic schools were just regular run of the mill buildings for the most part, but Holy Rosary Academy was physically connected to the church that gave it its name. The church also had crypts underneath its floor, thus demanding consecration of the grounds surrounding them.

It was a layer of protection that was rare, and the practical side of John couldn't dismiss it. Especially with this new knowledge breathing down his neck.

As the Sierra ate up the miles, John felt the deep ache in his gut from missing his boys. Honestly, he didn't think they had any idea how much it tore him up to be constantly separated from them. There were simply no easy answers for his little family.

What was he supposed to do the day after watching his wife burn on the ceiling? Should he have accepted the official explanation of bad wiring in the house, like the fire inspector desperately tried to drive down his throat?

It didn't take the fire in Lawrence to convince John that the average person naturally had a mental default to simply explain away the horrible things in life that they weren't capable of comprehending. The things he had seen in Vietnam made shells of men who lost their tenuous grips on sanity there. He had struggled with it himself, and it had only been his beautiful Mary that had become the calm in his storm.

After her death, when all concept of rationality had flown out the window like a monsoon, there had simply been no choice for him. It wasn't just her death that had paralyzed him in terror. She had burned in their baby boy's bedroom, and John had never been able to shake the lingering dread that lurked in the corner of his mind that the evil that had claimed her wasn't there solely for his wife.

John's actions since that fateful night had been not just for the resolution of his wife's murder, because she was dead and there was no changing that fact, and yes, she would be avenged. But his living children needed his protection more, and he needed them to be able to protect themselves. Because he knew, as surely as he knew his own name, that he wouldn't never make it through the unendurable agony of losing one of his babies.

The moment those two beautiful creatures had been placed in his arms he swore to each of them in their turn that he would be the best father he could be. He knew what a bad father was like, because he had had one. So when Mike and Kathy had begun to not-so-subtly suggest that he leave the boys with them if he was determined to chase down some crazy idea of what had actually started the fire, he grabbed his children with both hands and walked away.

Henry Winchester may have abandoned his son, but John wasn't his father, and he would _never_ walk away from his boys.

John rubbed his eyes as he noticed the sign for the upcoming travel center. He was fairly broke at the moment, having used all his available credit for the house, but he was okay with that. More than okay, because as long as his kids had a comfortable roof over their heads it was more than he could ask in life most days.

He still had a card designated solely for gas and enough cash for some cheap food. It wouldn't be the first time he slept in his car for a couple of weeks. The travel centers catered to truck drivers, and for a few bucks he could grab a shower every couple of days. One of the benefits of driving to New Mexico was that he had two new cards that would be showing up any day at the latest post office box in Colorado. If he was lucky he could hit it on the way back and be flush again.

Against his will, his thoughts kept returning to his absentee father. John barely remembered him by that point. It's not like five year olds had a particularly large capacity for long term memories, and if it wasn't for the occasional lapse in thought that had him humming that damn song from his old music box, he probably wouldn't even remember as much as he did.

What he did know was that Henry had devastated John's mother. She spent the next twenty years of her life blaming herself for his disappearing act. 

If only she had been a better wife. 

If only she had kept a tidier house. 

John still gritted his teeth over that one because his mother was an impeccable housekeeper and you could eat off the goddamn floors. Millie belonged to a generation where women were taught to consider themselves less than if they were not the perfect wives and mothers.

The scandal of being abandoned by her husband had broken her. Ultimately, unable to withstand the stigma of being a social pariah, she had packed up their home in Normal and moved John back to her parent's home in Lawrence. Even there she had be the subject of ridicule because her marital status was in question. Henry never even had the decency to formally apply for divorce, and eventually Millie had been able to have her marriage terminated on the basis of abandonment.

When John was ten Millie married a former schoolmate from her high school days. John's stepfather was a good man, even if Millie's parents looked down on him for being a loud, brash and decidedly blue collar mechanic. Henry Winchester had been cultured and well educated, presenting himself as the perfect gentleman, and in spite of his desertion he still set the bar in what they had wanted to see in a son-in-law.

John had loved his mother's second husband. For all of their fights and clashes in temper, his stepfather was stable, a good provider, and he took a fatherless boy under his wing and taught John everything that a father should. John would have been honored to take his name but Millie had been insistent that he stay a Winchester. John's stepfather had never pushed the issue, but John knew it had hurt the man deep down to be denied.

To make up for it John turned his back on his biological father's seemingly refined and educated background, choosing to eschew college for the military. If college educated men walked away from their families without a backwards glance, John didn't plan on becoming one of them. He survived the war, went home and worked hard. He married his love and doted on his kids.

And when his entire world blew up in front of him he clutched his children in his arms and never looked back. Nothing would have ever induced him to leave them behind. 

John wasn't Henry, and never would be.

With his thoughts of family restlessly churning in his head, John glanced at his watch and realized that it was already late morning. He knew that Sammy was starting his first day of school today and he had meant to call Dean and make sure that everything had gone smoothly. He dug his cell from his pants pocket and hit the first speed dial, not surprised when his son picked up on the first ring.

"Hey, Dad," Dean answered cheerfully, and John had to smile from the warmth he heard in his son's tone.

"Hey, Kiddo. How's everything going?"

"Yeah, everything's good, Dad. How about with you?"

"I'm on my way to New Mexico to talk to that seer Bobby mentioned. Then I'm meeting up with Caleb. We're going to check out a possible angry spirit outside of Denver. Should be routine. Caleb's only joining me because he has a new source for some good lore books that we're gonna stop by to see on the way back to Lincoln."

John forced his mouth shut because he knew that he was rambling. Something he only did when he was nervous, and his eldest son knew it but fortunately Dean didn't call him on it.

"Hopefully, we'll be back to his place by Friday. If we are, I'll be expecting you boys to meet up with us there," John ordered, a little more gruffly than he had intended.

"Yes, sir. We will," Dean answered smartly, ever the obedient soldier.

A few tense seconds of silence passed before John manage to speak again. A little more softly this time, leaving Dean in no doubt that this was the true reason for the call.

"Did Sammy get off to school this morning okay?"

John could swear that he heard Dean smile on the other side of the line. Kid knew his old man better than anyone. _Little shit_ he thought fondly.

"Yes, sir. Took him myself and stayed to make sure that he was out of harm's way before I left."

"That's my boy," John said, his voice warm with affection for his son.

"Ooh, Dad, you should have seen the hotties at Sammy's school. Kid is in for a great time this year."

That did get a laugh out of John because his oldest was randy little bugger. If Dean didn't have at least one kid out there somewhere by now, John would eat Bobby's grubby ball cap.

"Listen, Dean, I gotta go, but I'll see you boys in a few days. Watch out for Sammy, kiddo. I'm counting on you."

"Yes, sir. You know I will. Take care of yourself, Dad."

"Yeah, you too, Son."

John ended the call just in time to signal his exit for the travel center. He needed a hot shower and a quick bite to settle the caffeinated acid in his stomach. His kids were counting on him to keep them safe, and he would.

Or he would die trying.

/

Holy Rosary Academy was one of the nicest schools Sam had ever been able to attend. The architecture was an eclectic mix of classic Gothic wood and modern glass and chrome. He wouldn't have thought that the two mediums of design could compliment each other but somehow they worked here. Obviously, when building the school, someone had paid a lot of money for the talent that created it.

It was a good size in student body as well. Big enough that it offered a large list of extracurricular activities, but still small enough that the student/teacher ratio allowed a lot of individual attention. The classes were competitive, offering AP everything, college prep courses and hard working student advisers. The school had a near perfect graduation rate, and the percentage of seniors that were accepted at their first pick universities was blindingly high.

As he walked along the pristine hallway he felt like he was in a dream. Just a few weeks ago he had been depressed. Struggling for a way to get himself out of the hunting life without decimating his family in the process. All Dean had said as they stood in the living room of what was now their home for the year was that sometimes birthday wishes did come true.

Sam had never loved his big brother more than he had in that moment.

He didn't know how he would ever begin to repay his brother for making this happen. He wasn't selfish enough to not know what it was costing Dean personally. It wasn't even about all the money it was going to take every month for all of the expenses they were going to have, because his big brother had always made sure that they were okay when Dad wasn't around. In the end, it was really more about what it was costing Dean mentally and emotionally.

As much as Sam hated it, his brother lived for the hunt. Not like Dad did, because for John it was all about revenge. For Dean it was about helping people, and there wasn't any other way to look at it. He could say that it was about revenge for Mom all he wanted to but Sam knew him better than that. 

What Dean really meant when he talked about doing it for Mom, was doing it for _Dad_. Because Dad would never rest until he fulfilled his mission, and Dean wanted his living parent alive and safe.

So if that meant hunting until their mother's killer was taken down, then that is what Dean would do.

Until then Dean would hunt to save people he didn't even know, because that's just who he was. He watched out for everyone. Took care of everyone. Even when it was at his own expense. 

Sam most of all. 

Sam didn't even know what it had taken to convince Dad to allow this to happen but he suspected that it had come at the price of another chunk of his brother's heart at some point in the process. All Sam could do now was work his ass off to make his brother proud of the sacrifices he was making.

Dad had been different lately too.

After that one scary night Sam had gotten more and more glimpses of the father that John must have been before the fire. Not in any dramatic _turn over a new leaf kind of way_. More like a _this is the person I used to be and I haven't quite forgotten completely_ kind of way. Not that Sam hadn't been pleased by the new insight into his father's latent personality, but it actually made him sad to realize how different things might have been between the two of them under different circumstances.

Sam didn't want all of the fighting and tension between them but most of the time he just couldn't help it. He felt himself being so _angry_ all of the time at his dad, and he usually couldn't even explain why. The anger was just there, lying in wait under the surface of their interactions. The last few weeks as he watched his father help them set up the house, painting the trim work and even fucking _mowing the lawn_ , it had been like watching some kind of parody of their lives where John Winchester was just a regular dad.

And it broke Sam's heart a little.

Dad had even brought him to school for his entrance interview, which had been mind blowingly surreal. Of course he was sure that his father had ulterior motives because, seriously, Sam wasn't buying the idea that Dad had wanted a tour of the grounds to see the architectural attributes. There was paperwork involved, and Dean had joined them too because there were now legitimate documents that listed his big brother as an additional legal guardian of Sam in their father's absence. John had made sure that there would be no questions regarding Dean's ability to act in his stead in case of a problem.

That was another new thing for Sam to wrap his head around.

Not like his brother hadn't been playing the role for years already, but there was something decidedly different about it being done above board. When Sam had asked his brother why such a drastic measure was enacted now so late in the game, Dean didn't have a satisfactory answer to give. Only that Dad had insisted, and Sam was pretty sure that his brother was joining in his worry about exactly why their father suddenly felt the need to make sure everything was neat and tidy without requiring his presence.

The documents themselves were another intriguing piece to the puzzle. Occasionally hunters needed the real deal for one reason or another. Although most of them were quite talented in skirting the usual legal requirements on a job. Dad's hunting buddy Travis, who both the brothers had met on several occasions, had a brother of his own who was a lawyer. He didn't hunt, but he did work for hunters when they needed it. It had been a sort of epiphany for Sam, and he was beginning to wonder if that is how he could finally find his place in his father's and brother's world without having to pick up a machete himself.

It was a new world with exciting possibilities, and Sam was beginning to see light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.

/

The house still reeked of burnt chicken and barbecue sauce, no matter how much air freshener Sam had sprayed after dinner. As he sat at the kitchen table and worked on his homework he smiled because Dean was trying so hard to cook new things for them.

"Sonuvabitch! My eyes are watering."

Dean was at the kitchen door that led to their decent sized back yard. Attempting to vent the lingering smokey smell, he was pushing the door open and closed repeatedly.

"Aww, it's okay, big brother. You'll make someone a pretty little wife someday. Don't worry."

Sam's eyes were twinkling mischievously as he teased his brother who immediately threw a dishtowel at his head.

"Shut your face."

There was no heat in Dean's words and his mouth was turned up in a crooked little grin as he took the teasing in stride. Sam smiled to himself because his brother had been more lighthearted than usual since they moved in and, inwardly, he was pleased to see that maybe this plan was going to be good for Dean too.

Giving up the hope of clear air for the moment, Dean shut the door and locked it up tight, years of ingrained habit working from muscle memory. He sat down at the table and gave the pile of books spread around his little brother an incredulous stare.

"Man. That much homework on the first day? I would feel bad for you but this is probably a wish come true in your world."

Sam rolled his eyes and finished the review sheet he had been filling out, neatly putting that section away in his bag. Actually his assigned work had been done for an hour already, but it never hurt to get ahead.

"All AP classes, Dean," he reminded his brother. _Plus the Latin that Dad's making me take_

Dean just shook his head and got up from the table to grab a beer out of the fridge.

"Well, whatever it is, it's time to put it away. It's almost ten, dude."

Sam huffed and reluctantly began to load everything into his bulging backpack. _House Rules #12_ was the most ridiculous one of them all.

"This is so stupid. Since when does Dad care what time we go to bed?"

Dean laughed as he walked into the living room and turned on the TV that Bobby had lent them. He flopped down on the couch and put his feet on the coffee table as he looked for the right channel.

"Since he told you to hit the rack at eleven and you argued with him," Dean reminded his stubborn little brother. "It's your fault it's ten now, Sammy."

The discussion of _House Rules #12_ had been another pissing contest that Sam had lost just like the haircuts. Fortunately he had managed to keep his mouth shut about the rest of the rules because clearly Dad hadn't been messing around.

"Yeah, if you live in Donna Reed world," Sam grumped, heading for the stairs.

Dean had already made it clear that Dad's rules were going to be enforced to the letter. Although he had also casually bought Sam a new high powered flashlight. Reminding his little brother pointedly that the rule only required Sam to be in bed with the lights off by ten. Not that he had to be _asleep_.

"Besides," Dean continued, taking a large swig of beer. "Now that we have to have our happy asses up by oh-five-thirty to run in the morning, I'll probably be going to bed right behind you."

Sam had to agree with that one. They had a five mile run to do every morning before school, plus their full drill of PT before dinner. Sam had also tried out for the soccer team today, and if he made it, it was going to mean practice three times a week for that as well. The extra sleep was starting to not look so bad. From the television, Sam heard the telltale sounds of the _Law and Order: SVU_ chimes.

"Now get out of here, Sammy. Mariska and I need some alone time."

Sam shook his head as he smiled at his big brother who was wagging his eyebrows lasciviously. As he headed upstairs he could hear Dean enjoying the beginning of the show.

"Oof, Detective Benson. You naughty little minx. I'd let you cuff me anytime."

Entering his bedroom, Sam flipped on the overhead light and reached into the dresser to get a clean tee and sleep pants. His room wasn't anything fancy. Just a double bed with a slightly scarred antique wood frame. A dresser with a decent sized mirror attached to the back that matched the nightstand off to the side. Dad had actually built a couple of bookshelves for him from plain wood they got at the nearby lumber yard. They were heavily engraved with protection sigils, but you didn't really notice them unless you looked hard.

The room still smelled vaguely of new paint. Dean had wanted him to like it, so Sam was allowed to pick the color and the two brothers had spent a companionable afternoon covering the walls. Luckily Dean could be meticulous about certain things and it looked pretty good.

This was home. 

A real home. 

At least for awhile. 

And that was all he had ever really wanted.


	7. October 2000

Blood.

There was always so much blood.

Clinging to his hands as he desperately tried to wash it all away. Layers of his own skin being sloughed off down the drain from the harsh scraping of nail brushes and steel wool pads. Steady streams of dark pink water swirling in the basin of whatever sink he had access to.

Dark, accusing, copper smelling stains painting every article of clothing he possessed. Never truly coming clean even after soaking and scrubbing, again and again, until the fabric eventually gave out and tore.

Permanently discoloring the threads making up the seams of his boots, his bags, the upholstery in his truck. The cheap motel bedspreads where he would collapse exhausted and spent, unable to move even an inch further to clean up after a hunt.

On a good day the blood came from the monster he hunted. Arterial spray from a ghoul's neck after a decapitation. Blowback in his face after shooting a werewolf in the heart with his ever present rounds of silver.

An acceptable day saw the fugly's blood mingled in with John's own. And that was okay too, because injuries were the price he paid for the job he needed to get done. His scars were a badge of honor as they crisscrossed over his body, making a jagged patchwork quilt of his skin. As long as he managed to put the evil down to the ground and walk away under his own steam, that was all in a good day's work.

The aftermath was harder. Usually involving stitching up his own injuries with nothing but an embroidery needle and some fishing line when his kit was down to the dregs. His head swimming with just enough whiskey to manage the pain and still stem the flow of his life spilling out on an already suspiciously stained carpet.

A bad day meant a hospital, if he hadn't been able to crawl his way to the friendly refuge of another hunter's living space. The antiseptic cleanliness of a place where the lights were too bright, the questions too invasive and unanswerable. The drugs too potent, sapping him of his will and cohesive thought to be on his guard, able to assess the vulnerability of his environment. The risks to his anonymity and freedom too real under the bureaucratic scrutiny of fake insurance cards.

On the worse days, the blood was that of one of his sons.

The first time John had seen one of his kids injured Dean was ten months old. Sturdy, stubborn and curious, traits that had followed him to manhood, John's firstborn was already up on his feet and tearing up the floor as fast as his wobbling chubby little bow legs could take him. All it took was a split second, a minuscule bump in the area rug and a sharp corner of a coffee table. One minute his boy was zooming across the living room floor, and the next he was crumpled in a heap next to the table, screaming his little lungs out, while a ribbon of blood streamed down his beautiful face.

Head wounds bleed so much more than they should be able to. They can be deceiving and cruel, creating heart stopping lumps in the throats of parents everywhere. John froze, his legs going weak underneath him at the sight of the trail of red streaking down the side of his baby's head. A feeling of helplessness consuming him, immobilizing him in place as still as a statue, even as his child wailed his inarticulate despair in John's direction.

_Daddy, help me._

_Daddy, I'm hurt._

_Comfort me._

_Fix me._

_Daddy, I'm scared._

_Make it stop._

_Hold me._

_Love me._

Mary had rushed out from the kitchen, scooping the baby up in her arms and crooning soothing whispers in his ear. It had taken all of five minutes to get Dean cleaned up, bandaged and happy again. Toddling out of the kitchen and clutching a cookie in his tiny hand, previous distress already forgotten. The smallest of Band-Aids covering the nearly invisible pink injury on his hairline even as he flopped down on his diapered butt to play with his firetruck.

John hadn't been able to move an inch the entire time.

Two tours in Vietnam had hardened Corporal Winchester to atrocities that no man should ever experience. There spilled blood was as commonplace as the sweltering heat and malaria laden mosquito bites. John had spilled plenty himself. Both his and that of his prey, because John was talented and a sneaky fucker. His movements silent and invisible, his aim straight and true. Hell, he was the _best_. Perched behind the barrel of his weapon, target in his sight, an implacable calm developed out of necessity, the enemy never stood a chance.

He had seen his friends and enemies blown to bits, severed arms and legs as meaty, ragged projectiles flung over the endless expanse of swamp grasses. He had stood rock steady as he triaged explosive chest wounds, his own red drenched hands firmly keeping pressure on ruined guts while waiting for the low thrum of evac choppers, knowing that it was already too late for salvation from the wreckage. Held the cold, clammy, slippery fingers of his blood soaked brothers in arms as they cried heart wrenching pleas for a deliverance that never came.

It had just been much easier to deal with the gross horrors of war in a clinical fashion.

To mentally detach himself from the life force ebbing away in his hands instead of pondering on the desperate, familiar faces of the young men like himself. Kids whose lives were already over before they had ever really begun. Detachment was the only way to be able to sleep at night under a deceptively calm sky, a world away from everything and everyone he had ever known. Wrapped in khaki, Kevlar and plastic, feet perpetually soaked and half rotting away from fungus, in a wilderness of pain, ears constantly ringing with the echoing shock waves of gunfire and explosions.

It simply hurt too much to allow himself to feel there.

To function, to help those around him in distress, to do his _fucking job_ , he had needed to check his sympathy and compassion at the door. A full scale mental freak out wasn't going to help him be a better solider, a better friend.

Not having your head in the game got you dead quick. Emotional breakdowns got your buddies dead quicker.

He had learned that the hard way during his second month in country. Dizzy with the anxiety that came from being dropped into the meat grinder that was Vietnam, a young kid who thought he knew everything but actually didn't know jack. John had been a hair's breadth away from becoming a name on a wall before having his ass pulled out of a firefight by a fellow marine on his third tour. Deacon Kaylor had shoved him to the ground and ruthlessly laid down the brutal truth to survival. John owed him his life, and remained in contact with the now prison warden to this day, determined to pay him back.

When he had returned stateside it had been his beautiful Mary that brought him back from the edge. Reminded him what love and compassion were like. Helped him feel again.

It never got any easier to see one of his own boys hurt or bleeding.

As children, rambunctious and energetic, they had their fair share of minor cuts and scrapes from rough housing and brotherly fistfights. Motherless boys who had to make do with the gruff ministrations of a distracted father's calloused hands, instead of the warm softness of Mary's gentle touch. John would patch them up, hug them or punish them, or both, whichever the situation called for, and then send them off on their way again, but keeping a closer eye afterwards.

The first time Dean got hurt on a hunt he was thirteen years old. Capable with firearms he was standing guard while John dug up the floorboards of a house to find the remains of a murdered child who had been killing the mothers of the new families moving in. Caught off guard the spirit had launched Dean into a set of French doors, the broken shards of glass slicing open a long line in his right arm.

Dean never even flinched. Already a true soldier he got back on his feet, held his position and kept watch, even as his tattered shirt sleeve blossomed crimson while his father finished the job. John had warily appraised him through the rear view mirror as they sped back to the motel. Dean quiet, using his good arm to comfort Sammy as his little brother cried bitter tears over the blood soaking the Impala's back seat. Dean didn't utter a sound as he held his father's gaze in the mirror, his expressive green eyes giving away his own young terror.

_Daddy, help me._

_Daddy, I'm hurt._

_Comfort me._

_Fix me._

_Daddy, I'm scared._

_Make it stop._

_Hold me._

_Love me._

This time John didn't freeze. This time his mind returned to a place when he had checked his emotions for the good of his fellow soldiers. He couldn't afford to think of the boys as his babies on the hunt, for the simple reason that he had already forced them to become soldiers.

Because not having your head in the game got you dead quick, and emotional breakdowns got your family dead quicker.

So that is how he managed to sew up his son's shredded arm that night without his legs collapsing underneath him. How he managed to triage them and tend to them through every injury the hunts gave them. With the dispassionate and clinical care of a fellow soldier, and not the overwhelming fear and anxiety of a scared shit-less father. His boys were made tough. Were told to _suck it up_ , and _take it like a man_ , because that was how he would keep them alive in a world where they needed to grow up too fast and face nightmares too grotesque to comprehend.

Later, when the crisis had passed, he could fret over them and comfort them, and sometimes in the dark of night cry over them while they slept, banged up and bruised from the war he had dragged them into. And as the years dragged on, his mind began to process new glimpses in their kaleidoscope of greens and hazel eyes as their never ending campaign dragged on.

_Daddy, help us._

_Daddy, we're hurt._

_Comfort us._

Finish this.

_Daddy, we're scared._

_Make it stop._

_Hold us._

_Love us._

_Protect us._

Blood.

There was always so much blood.

Clinging to his hands as he desperately tried to wash it all away, layers of his own skin being sloughed off down the drain from the harsh scraping of nail brushes and steel wool pads. Steady streams of dark pink water swirling in the basin of whatever sink he had access to.

Dripping from the deep gashes his holy water drenched knife cut into the face of the dead meat suit the demon was riding. Staining the cement floor of Caleb's basement, turned into a room of torture to extract the information John needed to keep his children safe.

Spiderwebbing the whites of his eyes as he glared hatefully at himself in the mirror, afraid of just how far he was willing to go to protect them.

/

It was a beautiful autumn day in South Dakota.

The melodic strains of _Turn The Page_ emanated from the Impala's tape deck and floated in the air around the salvage yard as Dean lay prone on Bobby's old wooden creeper seat under the Camaro. A small pile of phone handsets lay nearby, the worn peeling tape identifying each fake agency that Dean would have to plausibly represent in case of a hunter's emergency. Bobby was away for a few hours, meeting up with a buyer for a talisman that he had come across in his travels.

Dean had always known that Bobby's small but lucrative side business of dealing in occult objects made up for the financial shortfalls of the salvage yard. Sometimes he idly wondered exactly how much the amulet he himself wore would bring from the right buyer.

Not that it really mattered. He'd kill any bastard that tried to take it from him first.

The day his little brother gave it to him Dean had felt the extra weight it brought to his chest. Not just from the heavy chunk of metal itself, which thumped hard as he moved and occasionally caught him in the teeth with a painful whack. But from the knowledge that with the gift came Sam's faith in trusting in Dean over their father. A bond of brotherhood so strong that Dean felt it as much a part of him as his own DNA. 

Not that he actively encouraged or desired to come first in his brother's life over John, but the responsibility still found itself laying heavily around his own neck just the same.

Working with now practiced moves, he steadfastly pounded out the mangled sections of the undercarriage, dislodging the various small pieces that were crushed beyond help in the crash that had defined the car as totaled.

He loved the work he was doing at the salvage yard. A peace had settled over him for the first time in his young life as he took these twisted and broken machines and finessed and crafted them back into something beautiful, gleaming with sleek lines and polished chrome in the sunlight. Something to be appreciated and loved, in a world where there never seemed to be enough of either sentiment.

Against Dean's initial hesitation Bobby's faith in his skill had paid off. He had already done enough profitable work in the past month and a half to more than earn his salary. With word getting around that Singer Salvage had a talented young mechanic working full time, Bobby's place was seeing a steady stream of new customers. From the men who grudgingly appreciated the quality his craftsmanship, to the ladies that welcomed the opportunity to ogle at the gorgeous young man working under their hoods. His rakish smile and flirtatious manner bringing a little extra bounce in their steps as they went about their day.

Working on the cars gave him a passably similar feeling of satisfaction to hunting. Not that he was deluded into thinking that they could possibly compare on the scale of importance. He knew better than that. Sure, someone's life might be saved because Dean had done a good job on installing new brakes, but there were a million mechanics in the world.

Under a rack, Dean wasn't any more important or vital than any of the others. Hunters, however, were few and far between, and they tended to have an exceptionally short life expectancy which made them even more rare. It was in that world that his polished skills were far more important to the greater good.

It didn't mean that he couldn't feel a sense of pride and accomplishment watching his handiwork roll out of the yard, knowing that he had made someone's life a little easier, a little prettier, a little more safe.

A million times over the years his thoughts had drifted back to the conversation he had with Robin on Sonny's couch in Hurleyville when she had asked him what he wanted to do with his life. His words to her about cars still haunted him, even as they still rang with a semblance of truth.

Fixing them is like a puzzle, and the best part is when you're done, they leave, and you're not responsible for them anymore

It didn't take a Freudian genius to know that he had been partially alluding to his little brother. A subconscious slip of the tongue by a scared kid who had carried the burden of half raising a younger sibling under strenuous circumstances, while keeping their emotional train wreck of a father on the rails at the same time. It had been a gargantuan weight on the shoulders of a boy who had so little faith in his own self worth he often felt himself drowning with panic that he would just screw everything up.

Now that he had felt the real icy tendrils of fear that his brother's absence would bring, he regretted ever saying those words in the first place. Back then it hadn't even occurred to him that Sam would even consider walking away from their family. It was laughable, a concept so abstract that it didn't compute at all.

They were Winchesters. They were family. Their family hunted. End of.

Dean no longer had any illusions that his little brother would have bolted if not given the chance to spend this time in the normal world. Sometimes in the dark shadows of the night, his head swirling with booze and feeling melancholy, he wondered if his father and brother even found it even remotely amusing that Dad had been born in a town actually called Normal. Talk about irony considering the current trajectory of their fucked up little family.

The experiment was working.

The radical shift in attitude between his father and brother more than welcome to both Dean and their father, and maybe Sam too. At least, Dean hoped so.

Now that Sammy was getting in some normal time in his life he didn't seem to glaringly resent the time spent with their father hunting on the weekends they met up. He still wasn't happy about it, but at least he was keeping his usual stream of pissy comments to himself. Between the hours spent in research and the actual time on the hunt, Dad and Sam were actually talking to each other for a change instead of just Dad barking orders and Sammy giving him lip.

It was a fragile truce, to be sure, but Dean was taking the win.

When he was feeling a bit more charitable about his brother's feelings for their dad, Dean recognized that it couldn't have always been easy for the kid. Sammy might bitch and posture over every little crack in Dad's fault line of parenting failures, but Dean knew the kid better than to not know that underneath the sulky exterior Sam often felt cast aside.

Dean felt bad about that, but he sure as hell wasn't going to apologize for it.

Well, most of it, anyway.

The biggest thing Dean and Dad had in common was their unwavering desire to keep their youngest safe. It was _stone number one_ in the Winchester family. Sometimes that meant hovering over Sam or leaving him behind, and it was just too damn bad if that hurt his precious feelings, because he was still just a snot nosed kid that needed to be kept on the straight and narrow and he didn't get a say in the matter.

But that didn't mean that Dean was blind to the damage that might have been the result of years of their actions. For one, Dean was older, and had been John's son longer and also under different circumstances for a while as well. Because they spent so much time together without Sam, of course Dean and Dad were going to have an easier time communicating.

He knew that sometimes the kid felt left out, could see it in the hurt expression on his little brother's face when his father and big brother shared thoughts and memories of things that hadn't included him. Sam tried to hide it, truly he did, and that tore at Dean a little because he couldn't change that.

So Sam would lash out, anger being easier to express than the pain of admitting that he was jealous. Sam had so much anger in him all the time, burning in his belly like a lava pool, building up to frequent eruptions that laid waste to his other family members at times.

On one level Dean suspected that a lot of Sam's rebellion to the hunting life was fueled by what he might have perceived to be a rejection by their father, or John's preference for spending time with Dean over time with Sam.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

While Dean knew that their father loved them both, John had always placed Sammy's safety over Dean's, and that was _fine_ with the older brother because he wanted that too. It didn't mean that once in a while Dean didn't feel some jealousy of his own. Where Dad would give orders and sharp, firm looks demanding obedience and ego crushing reprimands to Dean, Sam would get the softer smiles and more patient indulgence that he disregarded, too mired in his own petulance to see them for the gifts that they were.

A short time after he had been collected from Sonny's Dad had given Dean his beloved leather jacket. Well worn and familiar from the earliest days of their childhood, the boys had often found themselves sleeping in the Impala's backseat during long night drives with the jacket thrown over them to keep them warm. It was soft and cozy, infused with the comforting familiar scents of their Dad that even while they slumbered evoked a calming sense of safety. Like a protective shield that wouldn't let anything past its heavy exterior to hurt them.

Dean suspected that it was a peace offering. A way for his father, without words, to acknowledge that Dean was growing up. Had made a catastrophic mistake and took his licks, and was ready to rejoin the fold. A symbolic gesture that told Dean that he was becoming old enough to walk in John's shoes, but would always remain under the blanket of his dad's protection.

At twelve Sammy had still enjoyed the security of riding in the car under his father's coat and there was a painful sadness in his hazel eyes when it was passed on to his brother.

On several occasions after that Dean had been more than happy to drape it over his little brother while they were on the road, but Sam just stubbornly pushed it aside, unconvincingly claiming to not need it. After a while Dean had stopped trying, knowing that whatever small comfort it had always brought his little brother had been ruined by the transfer of ownership.

It had been hard to not take that one personally.

Then on Dean's last birthday John had pressed the main keys to the Impala into his firstborn's hand, and the hurt had pinched Sam's eyes again even as he struggled to muster up a half smile over his brother's enthusiasm. Another symbolic passing of the torch, of one of their family's few main possessions once again going to Dean without a thought of how Sam might feel about the car that had also more or less been his most stable home throughout childhood going to his brother.

Dean was trying. 

Really he was, because his brother's happiness mattered to him usually more than his own did. The simple truth was that Dean was, in fact, the first son, and with that title he took on all of the responsibilities and burdens that came with it. He took it all on stoically as his most important job, and he was sorry, _damn it_

_He was sorry_ that there weren't more family heirlooms to pass on to his little brother, but a fire that had taken their mother had taken most of them too.

That's why when Dad had sat with him on Bobby's porch that fateful August morning and pointed out the damaged Camaro, startling him with the story of how it was the right year and model of one that their mother had once cherished, Dean knew that he actually could do this one thing for Sam.

Bobby had wanted to just give him the wreck outright but Dean was his father's son and he didn't need charity. They came to a reasonable financial agreement for the body and replacement parts, and Dean was using his free time to slowly rebuild the car that he was planning on gifting to his little brother just as soon as he could.

Having learned his lesson from the last time he had a big idea, Dean had consulted his father while they worked side by side to carve the sigils in the kitchen of the little house a couple of days after they rented it. Once again Dad had surprised him with his agreement, and Dean knew in that moment that John also understood how important it was to give Sam additional tethers to their family. John had quietly offered to add his hands and skills to bringing the car back to life and giving it to Sam from the both of them.

The wrecked car in Bobby's yard had never belonged to Mary Winchester it was true, but she had loved it's twin, and John and Dean would pour their love for their youngest into the restoration of it, so that he too could own a piece of the family history that wasn't covered in ash, sulfur and blood.

/

Sam knew the minute he woke up that morning that he was getting sick.

His entire body hurt. The kind of achy, weakened muscles and generally crappy kind of hurt. He also knew it wasn't all because of the soccer game he had played in the night before. Pitted against Holy Rosary's main rivals, with the opposing team having the home advantage, Sam and his teammates had run flat out up and down the field with their fierce competitiveness on overdrive the entire time.

Rewarded with a win of only one more goal on their side of the scoreboard, they hadn't even minded spending the better part of the game soaked to the skin from the cold, steady autumn drizzle. Mid October in South Dakota was a fickle mistress, fluctuating between Indian summer days and the early heralding of approaching winter.

By the time Dean got him home Sam was still damp and covered in mud and starting to sneeze. Suddenly it seemed that having half of the team already battling the flu before the game actually _was_ a big deal after all. That his brother had been able to take him directly home instead of Sam having to ride the team bus back to school lessened the low grade resentment he harbored over _House Rules #18_ requiring his brother to attend any activity that was held away from Holy Rosary itself.

Not that Sam wouldn't have been pleased to have his big brother cheering him on in the first place, but he would have preferred that it be Dean's decision and not an order from their father. Dean at least seemed genuinely enthusiastic as he rooted from the stands with the other students and family members. He would sit, yelling and screaming encouragements from the sidelines, catching popcorn in his mouth, chatting with the parents of Sam's teammates, and clapping wildly when Sam made a goal.

Sam was also fairly sure that some of the girls came to the games just to stare lustfully at his pretty faced, bad boy brother, and not out of a passion for the sport.

He would have been embarrassed by the overt attention from an older sibling in front of his friends if only he wasn't secretly so pleased by it. Especially since Dean attended the home games too, and that hadn't been a requirement of Dad's mandates.

Unfortunately Dean could read him like a well loved and dog eared book. So when Sam barely made it through their morning run, when his longer legs and soccer drill toned muscles usually had him edging out Dean's strides, Dean had been frowning with concern.

When Sam took an extra fifteen minutes in the shower, standing listlessly under the hot pounding water, praying for a miraculous healing of the general overall weariness he was feeling, Dean went from sitting cross armed in the kitchen to pacing the upstairs hallway until the shower was turned off.

Sam had pushed past his big brother, stumbled into his room and slammed the door shut. Completely ignoring the concerned and searching glares that his brother had leveled at him with the laser intensity of a thousand suns. He barely summoned the energy to drag on his uniform, pulled the seemingly lead weight of backpack with one limp noodled arm, and practically fell out of his bedroom door.

Face flushed and aware of the crackling noise building up in his lungs, he was shocked to find the hallway empty knowing better than to think his pit bull sibling was backing off. Not surprisingly, Dean was leaning against the kitchen counter, menacingly holding a thermometer in his hand and daring Sam to protest.

"You look like shit, Dude."

Sam had slumped into his chair, already feeling a wave of dizziness pass over him.

"Bite me."

Dean had shook his head disbelievingly, crossing over to the table and holding the thermometer threateningly near Sam's mouth.

"Forget it. The way you look? I'd get rabies if I bit you right now. Open."

Sam was feeling too shitty to deal with his brother's oppressive mother henning. He turned his head away, ignoring the little digital stick, causing Dean to growl and reach out a hand to feel Sam's forehead. Sam had thrown up his own hand to block the gesture, ducking away and getting back to his feet.

"Get off me, man. I'm fine. And I'm going to be late."

Dean had thrown the thermometer onto the counter with an agitated flick of his wrist, followed by the Impala's keys, clearly signaling that they were not going anywhere at the moment.

"You won't be late, because you're not going. Get back into bed. I'll call the school."

Sam didn't like being bossed around at the best of times, and he really didn't like it when it was taking every ounce of strength he had in him to stand at the moment.

"Yes, I am. Stop being such a jerk. We have to go or I'll get in trouble."

Dean just sat down at the table and resolutely scowled at him with the same kind of unflappable commitment that Dad had when he was proving who was boss. Normally it would bring out the inner asshole in Sam's demeanor, but he simply didn't have the will for a heated knock down dragged out brawl.

Besides, a sad puppy face worked so much better on his brother.

"Dean, please. I have to go to class or I'll miss Quiz Bowl practice after school and then I can't compete next week."

Sam had put just the right amount of hopeful, soulful whine in his voice, knowing that Dean had never been able to refuse that particular tone. He even had the stamina to pull off the coup de grace.

"Just... _please?_ "

And just like Sam knew he would, Dean had shaken his head in reluctant agreement, rolled his eyes and driven him to school under protest, eliciting a promise from little brother that he would call for a ride home if it got too bad.

Now that Sam actually was in school however, he was regretting his decision to make himself attend. He spent the first three periods slogging through the hall, feeling like he was underwater with a baby elephant taking up residence on his chest. The lectures he usually enjoyed so much unable to penetrate the balls of cotton that seemed to be clogging his ears. The buzzing of words making his head spin as he tried to keep up.

He was leaning against his open locker door, listlessly sorting through his books to collect the ones for his next class and wondering if he would be able to walk the fifty feet to the classroom door without passing out. In the distance he saw the blonde wavy hair of Kristin Sullivan sashaying down the hall with some of the other cheerleaders, the short pleated skirts of their cheer uniforms giving tantalizing views of their shapely toned legs.

_God he loved Fridays._

Fridays were Spirit days at school during football season and the cheerleaders were allowed to ditch the already short school uniforms for the even shorter cheer skirts. For some inexplicable reason the beautiful Kristin had been shamelessly flirting with Sam for the past few weeks and was more than hinting for an invitation to be Sam's date for the Homecoming Dance next weekend.

Sam knew there were plenty of guys who would happily kill each other for the chance to take Kristin to the dance, so he wasn't quite sure why she was pressing him so hard. He also knew that she was very recently broken up from her long term boyfriend, Trenton, one of Holy Rosary's linebackers and an absolute monster of a guy in size and temperament. Sam wasn't scared of Trenton, knowing perfectly well that he could take the bully if the situation required it. It was all the overblown drama surrounding the high school politics of relationships, dating rules and bro codes that Sam didn't want to mess with.

Still, she was hot. Blindingly hot, and he was a guy, so...

But Dad's commandments were clear, and it was unlikely that Sam would even be allowed to go to the dance in the first place. Since their move to Sioux Falls there had only been two weekends that his father hadn't required them to meet up with him, and Sam didn't want to ask a girl out only to have to disappoint her when Dad said no, as he probably would. Especially for something as big as Homecoming where everyone, including the guys, seemed to be overly enthused for the weekend festivities.

Sam had never been to a homecoming dance at any of his schools, and he wasn't terribly social either, but he was damn curious now that he had a chance to fit in.

Through meet ups at the lockers, or a quick _closerthanthis_ sit down in the lunch room, Kristin had assured him on more than one occasion that she had her dress and was ready to go. _If only there was someone to escort her_ , she pouted prettily, running a well manicured hand down the length of Sam's polo covered bicep.

He and Dean were supposed to be meeting Dad in Lincoln tonight at Caleb's place, and Sam was determined to be very polite and very respectful and yes _plead_ for his father to give him next weekend off from hunting so he could go out with a gorgeous girl on his arm. Because Sam was not above begging for the chance to be something other than the school freak for once. He wanted to be that guy that got to take the hot cheerleader to a school dance.

Dean had taken one look at Kristin at the last soccer game and was impressed enough to jump on board, so at least Sam knew he would have his brother in his corner when the showdown happened.

Kristin caught his eye and waved to him as she headed to class and Sam felt a wave of his own, _one of dizziness_ , pass over him that wasn't entirely related to the obvious flu bug he was incubating. 

He wasn't a freak at Holy Rosary. 

Not this time. 

With his taller, more muscular physique and his shortened, but still adorably messy brown curls and shy smiles. Sam Winchester was a riddle, wrapped inside an enigma, wrapped inside a taco, and if he was honest with himself, he liked being a bit of a mystery.

He was also currently walking a fine line between the worlds of athlete popularity and nerdy brainiacs.

He played soccer, not football, which kept him just outside the full circle of the jock and cheerleader clique. Although his schoolmates saw enough of his talents and physical superiority in Phys. Ed. to be impressed just the same. He strolled the halls laden like a pack mule under the bulk of AP textbooks, rising to the top of the class rankings and earning the grudging admiration of the smart kids clique who saw their own standings endangered. He lived with a male model looking older brother who drove him to and from school every day in a bad ass black car, only adding to his aura of undiscovered charm.

Sam was quiet and shy, but always had a smile or helping hand for everyone. People liked him, for as little as they had gotten to know him. He had made a few friendly acquaintances but no really close friends just yet. His personal schedule didn't allow him much time for social activities because he worked hard and was demanding of himself in all things.

In his fervent desire to pad his applications he had filled each extracurricular period after school with a variety of clubs, throwing his enthusiasm completely at every one in their turn. Home at five every day, he only had five hours each evening to do the mandatory training Dad demanded, eat whatever crazy concoction his brother put on the table, and get his studies done before lights out. Gone on the weekends to parts unknown, it didn't leave a lot of opportunity for hanging out.

Sam's entire being felt sluggish as he swayed precariously on his feet at his locker. Rubbing his glazed eyes with one hand, he could feel the unnatural warmth of his face and knew that he should have just stayed home. He did want to go to Quiz Bowl practice though. Team rules mandated that a missed practice made you ineligible for the next match, which happened to be scheduled for Tuesday next week. Sam had worked hard to prepare and he wanted to compete. Another asset to his name for a scholarship.

Knowing that a trip to the school nurse would result in an undesirable phone call to his brother or worse _his father_ , he hefted his books in his arms and stumbled to the boy's restroom a few doors down the hall. Dumping his books on the wall length sink counter, he fumbled for a handful of paper towels from the dispenser, running them under cold water and pressing them against his face to soothe the sweaty heat of his skin.

Leaning his hips into the counter for balance, he kept the cold water faucet running steadily, swallowing the two ibuprofen tablets he stuffed into the front pocket of his khakis before he left the house this morning and washing them down with a handful of the stale tap water. The trickle of liquid agitated his slightly swollen throat and he found himself suddenly gagging and coughing up a small blob of mucus.

In the mirror he caught a reflection of his bedraggled and flushed face, his eyes glassy and unfocused, and he humorlessly admitted that he really did look like something you could catch a nasty disease from. No wonder his brother had been so grumpy about driving him in this morning. Reaching out to the faucet, he cupped his hands and splashed his face with a few scoops of the blissfully cold water. The relief dissipated as quickly as it had found him, leaving him breathless, heaving and blisteringly warm.

He could get through this. _He was a Winchester, goddamn it_. 

He'd sat through his father putting twelve stitches into his leg once after being clawed by a black shuck. Hunting far out of its normal grounds, the nasty beast had surprised their family before John put it down. With nothing to dull the pain except a few swallows of his father's whiskey, Sam had held still and managed not to scream, encircled by his brother's strong arms and soothing whispers, while Dad cleansed the wound with holy water, bubbling painfully in the torn folds of Sam's skin as he sewed.

Gritting his teeth in determination, Sam forced himself upright, ignoring the muffled, distorted sounds in his ears as he got his bearings. Too late realizing that the sudden absence of the usual cacophony of hallway noises meant that he had missed the bell for the start of his next period.

_Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit_

Two now equally unattractive options lay before him.

Behind door number one he could go to the nurse who would almost assuredly summon his brother to drag Sam's fevered ass home. Sam would miss his practice and the meet, because sickness didn't change the team's rules, and he would spend the rest of the evening under a barrage of his big brother's continuous rounds of _I told you so's_ , while Dean repeatedly shoved liquids and thermometers in his mouth.

Behind door number two was the pompous, unforgiving face of his asshole of a Latin teacher, Mr. Northam. A spindly, prematurely gray and bitter man who harbored a resentment against the new kid who had the audacity to point out a mistake in a verb conjugation at the beginning of the semester. He often went out of his way to try and trip Sam up in front of the class, not knowing that this particular student had an unusually firm grasp of the ancient language.

Either way Sam was now out of class without a hall pass. A big no-no in the very orderly, manicured world of Holy Rosary Academy, regardless of which direction he took.

Determined to deal with the inevitable consequences, Sam racked his shoulders back and headed towards his Latin classroom. Either choice was going to suck, but at least this one left his eligibility for Quiz Bowl intact. Class had already begun, the steady, dull repetitions faintly echoing behind the closed door as his classmates droned on and on with today's conjugations. He huffed, ran a hand through his sweaty hair, and pushed forward. His arrival bringing the lesson to an immediate halt, a late attendance pretty rare in a school where tardiness was frowned upon even by fellow students.

"Mr. Winchester. Thank you for joining us."

Northam's voice was laced with impatient hostility, clearly broadcasting the sentiment that the interruption was as unwelcome as it was unacceptable. He stood implacable, a sanctimonious sneer wrinkling his face as he peered over the rim of his glasses.

"Do you have a pass?"

Sam pursed his lips, refusing to either beg sympathy for his illness or be baited into a less than respectful response that would dig the hole he was in even deeper. It was a lot like dealing with Dad, he noted wearily, and just as frustrating.

"No, sir. I'm sorry, Mr. Northam."

The way the surly teacher's little pig eyes lit up you would have thought that Christmas had come early. Holy Rosary was full of wonderful teachers, all friendly, helpful and bursting with concern for the advancement of their students. Sam had carefully cultivated a great relationship with all of them and looked forward to his schedule every day. Unfortunately, every place had its bad apples, and Northam was at the bottom of that very rotten barrel.

"Journal please, Mr. Winchester."

Northam held out a thin, pasty white hand, a predatory smile sneaking around his lips. Sam sighed but he pulled a spiral bound book from the pile he held in his arms and passed it over. With far too much enthusiasm the journal was snatched from his hand and almost triumphantly slapped onto the ornately carved teacher desk.

This was a show now.

A moment of triumph for a sad little man whose ego had been bruised and had been biding his time to get his payback. Making a big production out of something so trivial, Northam pulled an embossed silver stamp from the center drawer, cracked open Sam's journal to the appropriate page and slammed the stamp against the pristine white paper with a flourish. A bloody red circular mark now marred the page and Northam grinned wickedly as he passed the book back.

"We've lost enough time today, Mr. Winchester. Take your seat."

If it had been Dean standing there nothing would have kept his big brother from making some spectacularly smart assed remark that would leave the jackass educator fuming and humiliated for the rest of the semester. Dean wouldn't have cared that it would have gotten him thrown out of class and possibly the school itself. Northam was the kind of guy that had most likely been bullied as a child and now found himself in a position where he could wield intimidation of his own with lead pipe cruelty, and Dean would have relished in the idea of taking the guy down a couple of pegs.

But Sam was not his brother. Not willing to risk all he had worked for so far and still hoped to accomplish with the unexpected gift of this school year on getting the upper hand with someone so clearly unhappy with his own life that he lashed out at innocent kids. Instead he ducked his head in submission, wanting the whole incident to just end while he semi-stumbled to his seat, the pounding noise in his ears and throbbing headache sapping the last of his strength.

His journal stared at him accusingly as the class resumed.

The pale blue covered book sported the school crest and Sam's personal ID number embossed on the front. Every student had one and they were carried throughout the day without exception. They served a variety of purposes for the teachers and students of the academy. Each page of the first section was a daily calendar with the space to make notes of assignment due dates and testing schedules.

There was a section dedicated to teachers' notes, where instructions and permissions like hall passes could be written. To be produced upon request by any faculty member to ensure that students were always where they were assigned to be. Holy Rosary had exceptionally high standards, was a thoroughly organized institution and, to be honest, Sam enjoyed the stability that the order brought. Too many times over the years his schools had been places of unmanageable chaos that weren't conducive to productivity or learning.

The last section contained a three page document outlining Holy Rosary's Student Code of Conduct. The _Code_ , and the fairly unwavering adherence to it, was what made the school as high ranked as it was. The school frowned on poor behavior in general, whether it was a lack of dedication to assignments, disrespect to faculty members or other students, littering, loitering, fighting or overall poor sportsmanship. 

Not to mention tardiness.

The _Code_ was provided at a student's initial interview with the principal and their parents and the contents were gone over in excruciating detail so that there were no misunderstandings if Little Johnny decided that he was being treated unfairly. Parents and students had to agree to each condition before admittance was given, and during Sam's interview the document had required a signature from him as the incoming student, and from Dad and Dean as his guardians.

Sam pressed the heel of his right hand to his burning eyes and forced himself to concentrate, even as his mind drifted in a feverish haze. Twice since he took his seat Northam had tried to embarrass him again, calling on him to answer questions that were too hard for the particular lesson they were having. His overt attention just made Sam more tired because he wasn't going to be caught on the spot. He prepared well for his classes and already knew Latin close to fluency. If it wasn't for Dad's insistence that he keep in practice, he wouldn't have bothered to take the class at all when he could be spending the time learning something new. After the second correct answer he was hoping just to be left alone to suffer in silence.

His student interview had been the first time that Sam really thought about the implications of the guardianship documents. As he watched Dean pour over the Code of Conduct, with a v of concentration indented in his brow line, Sam had mused over the concept that technically his brother now had as much legal claim to Sam as their father did. The fact that John Winchester wasn't the kind of guy to give up even a fraction of an inch of control over anything, especially when it involved one of his kids, was the thing that troubled Sam the most.

Maybe because it was _Dean_ and not anybody else that had Dad relaxing his usual guard, Sam didn't know. What he did know was that their father had been subtly changed by that one hunt, and where he had been mysterious and non-informative over just about everything during Sam's entire childhood, he was slipping into previously unseen levels of secrecy now.

He could tell that Dean was just as troubled although his big brother would never admit doubting their father over anything. Dean also didn't make a big deal of the guardianship when Sam brought it up, casually discarding it as a topic of conversation when Sam had wanted to talk about it and see if they couldn't put their heads together and come up with some plausible and rational explanation for Dad's actions.

In true form his big brother had dismissed the documents entirely, considering them just another one of Dad's orders, nothing more, and reminding Sam that a piece of paper did not change anything between them. Dean's matter-of-fact attitude towards the whole thing had made Sam smile, because it had never taken a legal mandate to prompt his brother's concern and care for him.

As he sat listless and bone weary in his seat, his too warm fingers restlessly rubbed against the outside seam of his student journal. Holy Rosary's Code of Conduct was enforced by the distribution of conduct marks. Penalties given to students breaking any section of the code, assigned by any faculty member at their discretion. Each teacher had their own specialized red ink stamp that could mark a student's journal for disciplinary action, and because the academy was a modernized and well funded institution, each faculty member also had individual access to the school's computer system.

By next period Sam's conduct mark would be entered into the system under his personal ID number, generating an automatic assignment of punishment and a corresponding letter home outlining the infraction and the measures taken in response. Sam knew the _Code_ , knew that his first mark would earn him a lunchtime detention in the Resource Room on Monday. He also knew that he was required to bring his journal home and have either Dean or Dad sign the stamp beforehand, because the _Code,_ stipulated that no action be taken without parental consent.

He could easily forge both his father's and brother's signatures. Just like they could both forge his and each other's. That kind of thing was sort of a requirement in their unusual little family for one reason or another. Although Dad tended to get volatile if something that could get them noticed by CPS was forged without him being informed first.

Dad was funny like that.

Sam wasn't even going to bother this time. With the letter automatically being sent home, one or both of them would find out eventually, and the fallout of hiding it from them wasn't worth the hassle. Neither one of them would even care that he had been a few minutes late to class, especially once they found out that he had been sick in the bathroom beforehand.

The downside to the whole thing was the fact that the _Code_ had been integrated in the _House Rules_ as well. 

Apparently because Sam's father had suddenly taken a new and unusual interest in his youngest son's schooling for the first time _ever_ and obviously felt the need to exert his Alpha Male dominance over everything school related during Sam's interview.

Students accumulated conduct marks in sets of three. If the third one wasn't earned during the current semester, the first two were erased. Only a third one would be entered as a behavioral problem on the student's permanent record, and it was this particular threat that had Sam determined to never earn three. Teachers couldn't give him a clean letter of recommendation if he had a behavioral mark on file. The first mark imposed a lunchtime detention. The second mark, two days of after school detention, and because Holy Rosary was a strict and traditional Catholic school, the third mark bought you a ticket to the principal's office and a date with his paddle.

Not that the last was a new development in the Winchesters' world. It was still legal in half the states in the country to paddle students, and given how many schools the boys had attended over the years, it was simple math that occasionally they would be enrolled in one where it was in use. Sam had so far been spared because he barely opened his mouth in school, let alone got into enough of a scrape to actually cause trouble.

Dean had managed to get his butt busted twice, because, well, Dean was just that kind of kid.

Sitting in the principal's office with Father Williams during his interview, Dad had turned in his chair and pointedly reminded his youngest that earning a paddling at school automatically bought him a whipping at home, and Sam had blushed nine shades of crimson. Not because that little pronouncement was breaking news to him, because it had always been the policy in their family, long before the implementation of the _House Rules_. Sam's ass was in a state of perpetual peril with his father anyway, especially if it was something that could get him noticed by the authorities.

But having his dad come out and say it in front of a stranger? Absolutely _mortifying_.

Unfortunately that meeting must have given Dad some divine inspiration, because as soon as they got home he added repercussions for all conduct marks to the _House Rules_.

Sam knew his first mark just earned him a corresponding extra session of PT tonight. Just like he knew that a second mark would get him grounded for a week. He didn't have much of a social life in the first place, so a theoretical grounding in the future wasn't a big deal to a kid that never went out anyway.

The extra PT? Was just going to _suck_ in his current condition.

That unpleasant fact caused him to groan as another wave of dizziness passed over him. As if he wasn't feeling crappy enough. His body pains had body pains, for crying out loud. 

Already he was formulating a plea to be excused from their regular workout without admitting that his brother had been right to worry this morning. Dean would fuss and hover over him, worse than any helicopter parent, because he took his responsibility for Sam's overall well being very seriously.

Sam was pretty sure that his big brother was already fretting over which permissive action on his part was directly responsible for whatever had been ailing the younger Winchester this morning. That also was just who Dean was. Running hot and cold. One minute ready to kick Sam's ass, and then the next stressing himself into a frenzy over Sam's tiniest little sniffle. 

On the flip side, Dean could also be the typical big brother, happily teasing and tormenting Sam, up to and including putting Nair in his shampoo bottle, leaving Sam in tears and looking like a miniature Uncle Fester until his hair grew back.

Dad had been so pissed over that one.

Dean would get the letter from school and he would sign the stamp, maybe even without gloating too much over his little brother's first foray as a school miscreant, although probably not. He would probably be bursting with pride in some off balanced, perverted sense of amusement kind of way.

Sam loved his brother, but sometimes he was just a great big bag of dicks.

If Sam was convincing enough or, worse case scenario, pathetic enough, Dean would probably let him push back the PT to another day, or maybe even cancel it out altogether. His brother could be sympathetic like that too. But that was dependent on how well Sam could keep his shit together and not let on just exactly how truly awful he felt.

Which was growing more and more doubtful by the second.

Telling Dean just how bad it was would propel his brother into canceling their planned meet up with Dad because it was just a research weekend a few hours away at Caleb's place, and that was something that his big brother would turn down in favor of Sam's health and well being.

Sam simply didn't want him to.

Dean rarely got any time for himself or, even worse, time to actually have fun without having to drag Sam with. Dean and Caleb were closer in age than Dad and Caleb were, and the young arms dealer, like the brothers, had been raised in The Life. He and Dean had a lot in common and on the rare occasion were able to get together and cut loose, away from Dad's heavy handed observation and Sam's overall neediness. Sam knew how much Dean had been looking forward to this weekend and he wasn't willing to spoil one of his big brother's few, all too infrequent chances, to have a good time.

That's why when Dean picked Sam up out in front of the school at five, and Sam had miraculously made it through the rest of the day without face planting on the waxed and buffed floors of the hallowed halls, Sam had stubbornly dug in and rebelled against Dean's worried insistence that they head straight to Urgent Care. All Sam had to do was put on his most pathetic face, not too hard under the circumstances, and say the words he knew his brother wouldn't ignore.

"I miss Dad."

/

Caleb had inherited his house in Lincoln from his grandparents. A simple Cape style wooden structure. Weather beaten and nondescript, with three small bedrooms and a fold out couch. It was a refuge for the hurt and the bleeding of the hunting community when they needed a place to rest when everything went absolutely pear shaped. It also had a uniquely designed basement, for when the hunt needed just a little something _extra_ in gathering intel.

The last in a long line of hunters, Caleb also inherited his father's gun dealership. With a storefront that sold legitimately registered pieces to the regular public, and a significantly larger underground vault that catered strictly to trusted hunters. John owed the majority of the current Winchester arsenal to Caleb and his family.

The young man was also a talented hunter in his own right. John had made sure of that himself after Caleb's father was brutally killed by a family of rugarus. John had known Caleb's father well and had been the one with the undesirable task of telling the boy what exactly the filthy creatures had done to his dad. Only six years older than his Dean, John had taken an immediately liking to the boy during his time frequenting Harvelle's Roadhouse, and had eventually taken him under his wing, like Bobby and Daniel Elkins had once done for John.

Hunters have their own special skill sets, and there just weren't enough of them around to shirk the responsibility of passing the knowledge down to the next generation. Caleb had been energetic and quick thinking, a passion for hunting that mirrored John's own. Like most other hunters, he stayed in The Life, first out of revenge and then out of a sense of responsibility, to spare others the pain and suffering he had experienced himself. He and John had taken their first joint hunt when they took down the rugaru family that destroyed Caleb's life and the older man knew in that instant that Caleb was in it for good.

Payback was a necessity, but it didn't take away the pain, or the drive to keep others from feeling it.

Caleb was friendly and easy going. A wicked sense of humor that could even get John laughing on occasion. The boys loved him, Dean especially, and it didn't escape John's notice that his firstborn often looked up to Caleb like an older brother. Dean was such a good big brother, in every way that John could have ever hoped him to be for Sammy. It was only right that his oldest get a chance to enjoy even the tiniest bit of the comfort and guidance of a big brother himself.

Because John trusted Caleb.

Trusted him with his secrets and his boys. It was with Caleb that John had allowed Dean to take his first road trip away from the family, and Caleb that John trusted to take Dean on his first hunt away from John himself. Not that he hadn't been trailing them, covering their every move, an overwhelming feeling of paternal affection for not just his son, but the fatherless boy he was so fond of. Of course they both knew that he was ghosting them, because John had drilled that skill into them. And he had smiled in pride over how well trained and accomplished they both were.

Caleb knew about the demon in Minneapolis, and John trusted him with that too. Because it was all just too big, too much and too scary. As desperately as he wanted to do everything in secret and protect his boys as much as he could, he just couldn't do it all alone.

When the boys arrived in Lincoln Friday night, John was wiped out. Mentally and physically drained to the point of dropping from the activities of the past few weeks, with the body of the secretary the demon had been riding freshly buried and weighing heavily on John's mind.

Dean was distracted, his eyes flitting over to his brother's flushed face every few seconds in undisguised concern. Sammy was clearly ill. His long limbs limp and uncoordinated as he stumbled into the house. What John had been hoping to be a relaxing weekend with his kids was already going south before the Impala's engine even stopped ticking.

He felt a wave of frustration and annoyance pass over him. A rebuke on the tip of his tongue to chastise his eldest as to why he would drag his sick little brother three and a half hours in the car when they weren't on an active hunt.

And then he had felt like a bastard for even thinking that.

Reminding himself of all of the endless hours in the Impala with the boys. Crisscrossing the countryside while they coughed and sneezed in the backseat, listless one minute and twisting in the throes of fever dreams the next. What kind of example had he set for his kids when he himself had not hesitated to take them from whatever comfort might be had from a dark and quiet motel room, as seedy as it may have been, and forced them on the road.

Looking like a recalcitrant child waiting to be scolded, Dean had hovered for a moment, head bowed and fidgeting. Turning in an instant from cocky creature hunter to John's sorry little boy. Surprised when the rebuke never came as John drew his boys in for a hug, feeling Dean's body relax in his arms and the shockingly high warmth of Sam's.

Dean had immediately taken Sam upstairs and got him settled in one of the guest beds, returning a few minutes later, anxiety plastered all over his face. John knew what this weekend had meant for his oldest, and he desperately wanted it for him. Because Dean never asked for anything. Had always given two hundred percent of himself for anyone that needed it, and never taken a thing for himself.

And John couldn't shake that thought. Didn't want to admit how much of that taking he himself was responsible.

In the end he actually had to make it an order for his firstborn to go out and have a little fun for a change, and the fact that it had taken something that extreme crushed John even further. That his boy would be so duty bound and faithful, he wouldn't even take an evening out on the town if he had a little sick brother at home, and only the unreliable hands of an absent father to leave Sam in.

Eventually, long after the two young men made their escape, John had collapsed on the sofa. A bottle of Jack in one hand and his journal in the other and nothing but darkness on his mind. He barely heard the uncoordinated footfalls of his younger son jaggedly find their way down the stairs.

When Sammy appeared in the doorway of the living room, his sweat soaked hair stuck up in every direction, his hazel eyes glassy and bloodshot, he looked seven years old again. The fevered, aching look he shot his father searching.

_Daddy, help me._

_Daddy, I'm hurt._

_Comfort me._

_Fix me._

_Daddy, I'm scared._

_Make it stop._

_Hold me._

_Love me_

John had lifted his weary body to guide Sammy first to the kitchen for water and more fever reducers and a cool washcloth for his burning forehead. Then to the sofa, helping his son lay down with his mess of brown locks pillowed on John's lap. He reached over to the chair nearby and snagged his own coat, tucking it around Sam's upper body. Watching his boy curl into it with a deep sigh of contentment as his sleep heavy eyes closed again, gingerly breathing through the increasingly loud rattle in his chest.

John was helpless where his son was concerned in a lot of ways right now. He was fighting. Would fight to the very last to protect his boys. He was learning too. More and more every day. But he was still helpless, and the reality of that was killing him. He didn't know where the road he was heading down was going to take him. To his salvation or to his damnation, maybe.

But this? 

This he could still do.


	8. November 2000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> November is a hard month for Winchesters

On March 23rd, 1972, John Winchester was walking down Main Street in his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. Recently back from Vietnam, John was out on a memory stroll, attempting to bury the horrors of the war behind him as he wandered from storefront to storefront. Reminiscing about simpler days, when his biggest worry had been whether or not he would help lead his high school baseball team to the finals.

Peeking into Bert's Barber Shop, where he had been getting his hair cut since he was just a small boy. Inside he could see Bert, well past retirement age, but still smiling, as he gave Mr. Mulroney, owner of one of the town's eating establishments, a quick trim. They waved at him through the window and he returned the gesture with a grin, glad to be back among the familiar and comfortable.

Across the street was Jay Bird's Diner. Reg brewed the best best coffee in Lawrence and made a mean plate of steak and eggs that could fortify a hungry man all day. John had spent many early mornings at the counter, availing himself of Reg's bottomless cuppa joe as he read the sports pages of The Lawrence Herald.

The Village Inn a couple of more doors down, where John's mother and stepfather held their low key wedding years ago. Just a handful of family and friends attending the simple ceremony, and ten year old John given the honor of Best Man. A nice day, even with his maternal grandparents making no secret of their disapproval of the match.

A short distance away was Rainbow Motors. A respectable, family run place that sold good quality used cars. John had a little military pay set by, and he was going to need some wheels now that he was back stateside. He didn't know quite what he was looking for just yet, wavering between functionality and frivolity. Welcomed back with open arms and working at his stepfather's garage, he was planning to save for a few weeks more before making a final decision, because some things just shouldn't be rushed. The family business had a good relationship with the car dealership and he already knew that Rainbow Motors would be the place to shop when he was ready.

He had shoved his hands in his pockets to warm them, because the late March air was still cool, and after the oppressive heat and humidity of Vietnam, it was hard getting used to it again. The collar of his jacket was pulled up, keeping a brisk breeze off the back of his neck as he wandered, his thoughts preoccupying his mind. He hadn't even realized how close he was to the door of the theater when it opened abruptly, and the next thing he knew he was knocked back on his ass on the cold cement sidewalk looking up into a pair of the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

Stunned for a second, he almost thought he was seeing an angel shrouded by the haze of the streetlights that lent an eerie glow to her long tresses of golden curls. It was like a lightening strike that took his breath away, and if he had believed in that kind of thing, he would have sworn it was love at first sight.

He shook his head to get his bearings back as his assailant sputtered mortified apologies, and he couldn't help the genuine peals of laughter that burst out of his lungs. Amused beyond words that this petite little lady could have bested the big bad marine that had just completed his tour in hell on earth.

Somehow, between her frantic attempts to assist him to his feet, and his temporary overall clumsiness from the crack his skull took on the sidewalk, he managed to stand and focus his eyes enough to drink in her perfect beauty. He stood, quiet and indulgent, while she made adorable attempts to brush off what could only have been imaginary dust from his clothes and rambled sincere regrets for the lump that was growing on his head. He grabbed one of her delicate, china smooth hands, the soft tinkle of an exquisite silver bracelet jingling from her tiny wrist, and spontaneously insisted that she make it up to him with a cup of coffee.

They strolled hand in hand to Mulroney's Diner, _her idea, because John was loyal to Jay Birds_ , the closeness of contact with a relative stranger feeling perfectly natural. She felt it too, he could just tell. Striding by his side, she was the perfect fit, like she had been next to him for his entire life. Inside they claimed a back booth and spent the rest of the evening until closing time talking about everything and anything. The diner could have been completely empty, for all the attention they paid to anyone else, happy and content, just the two of them in their own little perfect bubble.

That was the night John met Mary Campbell.

Their courtship had been brief, and not without its challenges. Mary's father Samuel seemed to have a hate-on for John from the moment they met, regardless of how polite and respectful the young marine had tried so hard to be. John wasn't stupid. Soldiers coming back from the war weren't welcomed by everyone, the bloody politics of the military action not sitting well with some. He also knew that he currently had nothing more to offer as a candidate for Mary's affections other than his honorable intentions and a fledgling career at the garage.

It had been easier to gain acceptance from Deanna, Mary's mother. A kindhearted, but no nonsense woman that kept Samuel civil, like a tiger on a leash, on the few occasions that John was invited to the Campbell house for dinner. Their house was tidy and comfortable. Samuel ran a dry cleaning business that he never seemed comfortable talking about, and Deanna was a substitute teacher. John often found the two of them talking quietly in Samuel's study, pointedly closing the door when they caught John passing by.

Mary was sunshine and warmth. Hope and beauty. 

Boundless energy that pulled him around town by the hand during their evening strolls, and he found himself following willingly, because just being near her took a rock slide of weight from his shoulders. Her smiles and kisses healing the still raw and bleeding wounds of his soul. With her, he felt that happily ever after was once again a possibility in a world where he had been engulfed in atrocities.

He fell for her wholly, and without choice.

In just a few short weeks, she had become his everything, and he committed his entire being to her happiness, feeling unswerving devotion and fierce protectiveness of this wildly amazing creature that had completely claimed his heart. She had inexplicable conflicts with her parents, especially Samuel. Only confiding in John that her father was forcing her life in a direction that she could no longer bear, and when she cried in his arms and asked him if he would one day take her far away, he had given her his promise without hesitation or regret.

Millie had been taken by surprise when her only son announced his intention to propose to the strange girl he had met only weeks earlier. Still feeling the long term ramifications of a failed marriage and of how, after all those years, she had not recovered from the pain and shame of abandonment, John's mother was less than enthused. However, when she realized that her son was determined and there would be no changing his mind without risking an estrangement from him, Millie had eventually given her blessing, and offered her son the small red leather box containing the solitaire diamond ring that Henry had once slipped on her own finger.

Praying that _this time_ it would bring a lifetime of happiness to the woman that wore it.

John was planning for their future from that moment on. If he was going to ask for her hand, it was time to settle down.

He withdrew the cash he had been saving for the car, intent on buying the VW van that had caught Mary's eye during a walk one day. At the dealership he gave the beige bus another once over, prepared to fork over the down payment and make it official. It wasn't what he would have chosen to start their life together with. What he was really looking for was a sturdy vehicle that would protect Mary and the family that he dreamed of having with her. A little something with some flash and a powerful engine for his own tastes.

It was happy fate that the strange man he met earlier that morning pointed him in the direction of the Impala. Heavy, yet sleek. With large bench seats to comfortably accommodate a team of little Winchesters, he made the split second decision to buy her. It hadn't taken too much to convince Mary he had made the right choice. That first evening as they drove around she fell just as much in love with the old girl as he had.

In the early evening of May 2nd Mary had called him, crying bitter tears over the line and begging him to hurry to her parents house. He was waiting outside with the new car as she ran towards him, her face distressed, her beautiful eyes red rimmed and wet when she threw herself in his arms. She clung to him, with a desperate fierceness of someone drowning, and as he held her tightly he once again promised to take her away from the life that was breaking her.

With the red box in his pocket, he drove her to their favorite spot near the river. She was pensive, grief still marring her beautiful face. Shaking her head sadly, as if she almost couldn't bear the words she suspected were on the tip of his tongue.

"There's things you don't know about me, John."

Said so sadly, and with such finality, that they would have broken his heart if he wasn't already set on his course. John hadn't been able to lend them any weight at all. He simply didn't care what was in her past, because nothing would ever have been so big and unforgivable that they would change how he felt about her.

"So? I will always love you for exactly who you are."

Heart in his throat as he struggled to enunciate words enough to convey the entirety of his love for her, he was on the verge of making his proposal when the passenger door was yanked open, revealing the preternaturally angry face of Samuel Campbell. Mary's father had roughly yanked her from the car, even as John screamed protests and ran to her aid.

"Dad, you're hurting me!"

Mary's voice was trembling and afraid and John was forcing himself to tamp down the soldier's desire to annihilate the source of his love's pain, reminding himself that this man would be his future father-in-law, and no matter how angry John was right now, he couldn't take the drastic action he craved that would make matters worse for Mary. The only thing saving Samuel Campbell in that moment.

"Hey, take it easy!"

John's mind was a red haze of rage, and to this day he wasn't able to remember most of what transpired in the few minutes that followed. He clearly remembered struggling with Samuel, but then it goes blank. The next thing he knew he was coming to on the ground, cradled in Mary's arms with Samuel's dead body laying scant feet away from them. Mary had clung to him as if her life depended on it, and once he had gathered his own wits he had taken her in his arms and whispered passionate assurances in her ear that he would always protect her.

The next few days had passed by in a blur.

Mary had tearfully recounted the story of how Samuel knocked John unconscious. Her father's adrenaline running high from the all encompassing despair of finding Deanna dead in the kitchen of their home with a broken neck. A freak accident resulting from a fall off a step stool as she reached for something in an upper cabinet. In his fervent desire to find their only child and bring her home, his emotions had been riding high enough to allow him to assault John, leading to Samuel having a heart attack after overtaxing himself in a physical altercation with the younger man.

It had been a tragedy of the highest order of magnitude.

His sweet Mary had lost her family over the course of just a couple of hours and John hadn't been entirely sure that she would ever forgive him for whatever role he had played in it. Miraculously she had, but refused to ever speak of that night again. There hadn't even been a funeral. Family members took control of the remains of the Campbells, and that was the last John saw of his beloved's parents.

Mary had needed some solitude for a while, and John understood that. Felt familiarity with the urge to crawl out of his own head space to process the cascade of emotions that poured over you when the reality you found yourself submerged in just got too much.

With the help of Samuel's brother Mary had managed to get her parent's affairs in order, wanting nothing more than to divest herself entirely of everything in the house and her father's business. John drove her to Rainbow Motors, where she immediately fell in love with the beautiful blue Camaro. Another Chevy and every bit as sexy as the Impala.

That was when she started disappearing for days at a time.

At first John had been worried. 

Worried that maybe she wasn't being honest with him about the depths of her grief. That she hid from him the obvious emotional collapse that was only natural under the circumstances. But she always returned to him with renewed strength and lightness in her eyes, as if whatever was occupying her time away from him was doing something to heal her smashed apart heart in ways that he himself had been unable to provide.

After a while his worry turned to suspicion, with more than a flicker of nervous jealousy. Asking himself in the evenings while he sat in the darkness of his parents' living room if it wasn't more than possible that there was someone else responsible for the uplift in her demeanor. He looked for the signs, desperately searching for some clue that would confirm or discard the fears of her infidelity that would lead to the absolute destruction of himself.

They never materialized.

Each and every time she returned to him he saw nothing but love and fervent devotion in her eyes. A genuine and deep seated relief of returning to the steadfast strength of his arms, and their love making passionate and consuming, leaving no room for any unknown specter to seep between the cracks of their union.

The little red box sat in a place of prominence on the dresser of the bedroom in the house they rented together. John withstood the condemnation and judging reprimands of his traditionalist mother who had been opposed to the marriage, but was even more deeply affronted by their premarital cohabitation. Because Mary simply wasn't ready. She didn't come out and say it, but it was clearly understood between them, and John loved her too fiercely and too completely to adhere to whatever society expected of them if it meant pushing her.

They lived comfortably this way, neither exerting pressure on the other, until one day, out of the blue Mary woke up and made John breakfast in bed, the red leather box on his tray. When she asked him to go to Reno and elope he didn't even have to think about it. They threw a bag in the Impala and drove all day and all night, officially marrying on August 19th, 1975.

It was one of the happiest days of his life.

The deep contentment he felt was shattered a few months later that year, although it wasn't from his newly married state. A drunk driver, over-served and unconcerned, careened into the oncoming traffic heavy with revelers coming home after New Year's eve celebrations in the early morning hours of January 1st, 1976. In a split second John's mother's and stepfather's lives were snuffed out like a candle. 

He might have humorlessly laughed over the ironic coincidence of losing both his parents at once like Mary had, if only he wasn't so bereft with grief over their passing.

Mind numb, he found himself in the same position of settling their affairs. It hadn't been an enviable prospect. The country was in the throes of an economic depression and the garage and unbeknownst to him _and he suspected also to his mother_ the house were heavily mortgaged. In the end the bank took both, because John wasn't his step-father's legal heir, and being so young he had no substantial material assets to his name to make him look financially worthy enough to take on the debt.

He caught a lucky break when the owner of Woodson's Automotive took pity on him and offered him a job. Mr. Woodson had been a friend of the family for years, often engaged in a cooperative referral of customers to and from John's step-father. He knew how talented John was and how destructive the blow to him had been. Mr. Woodson took John on at his own place, even though it was a strain on his own already precarious cash flow situation.

John and Mary made a comfortable home at the little rented house on Robintree. It was affordable and just big enough for the two of them without feeling cramped. John worked hard and Mary kept house, welcoming him home every day with the same passionate intensity that they had shared since the first day they met.

She still escaped for a day or two here and there, sometimes coming home with wounds that were explained away with the flimsiest of excuses. John tucked them all away in a deep recess of his mind because in truth he just simply didn't want to know. In their bed at night, her warm body molded to his own, he accepted their lives for what they were. Happy to just have her by his side and in his arms.

In the spring of '78, Mary had whispered in his ear one night as they lay spent from an especially exuberant romp between the sheets that she was carrying his child. John lay prone on the bed as his mind flooded with a tidal wave of emotions.

_Surprise_ , because while they both wanted children they had never really talked about the timing. 

_Sadness_ , that their child would never know his or her grandparents, and then _anger_ for the same reason. 

_Fear_ that he wouldn't be able to provide for Mary and their baby. An even deeper _anxiety_ that John would fail at fatherhood, the way Henry had. 

Finally, absolute _elation_ over the knowledge that he and the woman he loved more than anything were creating a life, after John had taken so many of them.

A new feeling of purpose had come upon John during Mary's pregnancy. The rented house wasn't good enough to start their family in. John had wanted a home all of their own to welcome their little one. Two years of working hard and saving had given them a small nest egg and with that they went house hunting, finally falling in love with one with a small porch and three good sized bedrooms.

John worked long hours at the garage that was now run by Mr. Woodson's oldest son after his father's untimely death. In the evenings after dinner and on weekends he puttered around the house and did renovation projects, determined that his child would have a happy and comfortable home.

At night in bed he placed gentle kisses and soft caresses all along Mary's swelling nude body as she lay by his side, watching in rapt fascination as their baby grew inside of her. Filled with a love that took his breath away, he worshiped at her altar and gave thanks to a higher power for the peace of his life.

Dean fought his way kicking and screaming into the world on January 24th 1979 and immediately became the center of his parents' universe.

John took one look at that tiny, red, infuriated face and his world spun completely around on its axis. A love so pure and complete engulfed him, and he knew in that moment that he would never be able to do justice in describing the overwhelming joy he felt holding his firstborn.

That day while Mary and the baby slept off the physical exhaustion of the birth, John had hurried out to his bank and stuck a hundred bucks into a savings account for his son's future. He wanted Dean to have _everything_ he wanted in life. Even a college education if that is what the boy chose, because John was not Henry and he vowed to his child that he would show him the real measure of a man.

Dean's every little move dictated his parents' lives from that moment on. They lived for his laughter, fretting over his tears. He was shamelessly fussed over and adored. The light in the darkness of his father's nightmares and his mother's still raw grief. With him, they both found a nearly incomprehensible bliss as they stood over his crib in wordless amazement to his perfection.

He grew fast. Strong and steady, a fierce determination in his beautiful green eyes. An ever-present underlining of gentle sweetness in his smiles and chubby armed hugs. He was motion personified, fearless and adventurous, needing only the attentive approval of his father and mother to keep him happy and secure.

He adored his parents. His mother most of all, and when Mary put an end to her wandering and sold her Camaro a year after Dean's birth John felt an enormous pressure release itself from around his heart.

John didn't know how he could possibly be made even more content until another whisper in his ear in the dark told him that they were about to do it all again a few years later.

Sam slipped into their lives on May 2nd, 1983 and his father didn't fail to take note of the significance of the date. He hoped against hope that the arrival of their second son would help heal the raw wounds that his beloved still harbored over that particular anniversary.

Unlike his older brother, Sam's arrival was quiet, a pensive thought already deep in the furrowed brow of the infant with a shock of John's brown hair. Sammy regarded his new surroundings with an air of judging introspection, as though he was determining whether or not to find his parents worthy or lacking. Finally he cooed and seemed to relax in John's arms, and the marine felt a wave of relief wash over him as if he managed to pass some sort of test.

The first six months of Sam's life were not as smooth as his brother's had been.

John had repeated the pledge he had given to the newborn Dean to his new son. Starting a savings account for Sammy, just like he had been contributing faithfully to Dean's for the past few years.

After the initial skepticism by the infant, Sammy was all love and cuddles, and John felt that his little family might be complete just as it was.

Determined to give his boys everything, John enlisted in the Marine Forces Reserves on the weekends for the extra benefits for his family. Unexpectedly, the training brought all of his repressed nightmares of the war screaming back at light speed, and he quickly found himself mentally flailing from the darkness that had surrounded him during that time in his life. Mary tried to help him, but she had her hands full with two little ones that needed her far more than John did, and they began to fight in a way that had never marred their marriage before.

For one regrettable week, John had even moved out of their home, unwilling to bring the pain he was harboring back to stain the happy home life of his wife and boys.

Somehow, they managed to push past their troubles and the little family was united and whole again until that terrible night of November 2nd, 1983.

/

John was sitting on the area rug covering the cement floor of the basement bedroom. Through the bleariness of his wet eyes and the muddled comprehension of a mind soaked in Jose Cuervo, he took in his surroundings and appraised the state of the walls. The painful memories of the past were barreling down on him without mercy tonight like they always did on this day as the years passed by. It hurt to breathe at all, really. Especially knowing that his beloved couldn't anymore.

He missed Mary more than he could ever possibly enunciate or comprehend.

She had been the other half of him, and all these years without her had been like trying to stumble his way through life on one leg. Bleeding out and swaying dangerously without being able to ever really regain his balance. The depths of his despair over failing to bring her justice consumed him like a fire sucking all the oxygen from the world, and if it wasn't for their boys he would have suffocated long ago and gone willingly just to be with her again.

The cement walls had been covered recently. Dean's slick tongue had bartered November's rent in exchange for his purchase of sheetrock and other supplies along with the labor to install them. The landlady was no fool, recognizing a good bargain when she heard one. The weekend Sam had been so sick with the flu John followed his boys back home. He and Dean had loaded up the bed of the Sierra with materials and together they had installed the panels while their youngest slept upstairs in the comfort of his own bed.

John's firstborn had spent the next couple of weeks meticulously filling the seams and nail holes with tape mesh and joint compound before sanding everything down. They were ready for paint now, but in his boozed addled brain John couldn't help the humorless observation that their current state was a perfect match for him already.

Plain, cold and gray. Their seams standing out stark and raw. Unfinished and ugly.

Just like John felt about himself most days.

Overhead he could hear the steady footfalls of his eldest son. Moving, moving. _Always moving_. That was Dean. Probably cleaning up the dinner he had made for them all. John hadn't been able to join his boys at the table.

Not tonight.

Every year on the day, no matter what was going on, John made sure to be with his children. Not that it made it any easier on the boys. Because John was never in any kind of shape to comfort them. Grieving and wrecked without exception, he was continuously emotionally and mentally unavailable to them, even as he insisted on burdening them with his presence. Later, when the clouds cleared and he came back to his senses after a day or two drowning in a pool of his own depression, he felt the deep roiling of guilt for pushing them away at a time when they were also in need, and he knew that there would never be any way to make that up to them.

It was Dean who insisted on spending the money renovating the basement. John thought it was a waste of resources for a house that didn't belong to them. An aesthetic excess he didn't need for himself. His desire for creature comforts had evaporated with the passing of his wife.

But his son was insistent.

The money already put aside from a recent sale of a rebuilt BMW. Reminding his dad that John had promised this would happen, and the guilty father who had broken so many of them relented, for the sole reason that it would afford him a day spent working alongside his boy. Showing Dean some normal instruction on home repair from a loving father that had once worked on their own house.

John had forked over the wad of cash he had accumulated for November's rent and told Dean to pay Sam's tuition for the month instead.

God, he was _so proud_ of Dean. Proud of them _both_. 

Somehow, in the middle of all of this chaos and his chronic absenteeism, they were growing up strong and capable. He wished he was able to tell them that more. They deserved it, he knew. If only it wasn't for this stubborn little nagging in the back of his mind that endlessly cautioned him to be reserved in his praise. That to make them overconfident in their undertakings would make them compliant and lazy. And they couldn't afford that kind of luxury.

Not yet.

Someday.

Leaning against the bed frame, the floor cold even through the rug, chilling him, he twisted his wedding ring around in perpetual frenzied circles.

"I wish you were here to see them, Mary. We did so good."

/

Dean hadn't wanted a sibling.

Perfectly content in a world where his parents' happiness revolved around his own. A prince, fawned over and pampered in his own little kingdom where he was John's buddy and Mary's little boy.

When his mommy and daddy told him that he was going to have a little brother or sister soon he was upset over the idea that he would have to share his parents with the new intruder. Dean wasn't even able to have a puppy because Daddy had said that they were too much work, and now there was this new person coming to invade their happy home and it _wasn't fair_ , and Dean couldn't understand why his parents needed another baby when they already had him.

A crying needy stranger, like the Millersons next door had, taking up Mommy's time and destroying Dean's toys.

Before long Mommy was too tired to play with him as much as she used to and she was getting bigger in the tummy. Dean watched with increasing worry, wondering why little brother or sister was making Mommy look like she was going to explode. What kind of _monster_ was this tiny interloper anyway? The four year old's little face was in a constant state of frowning over something terrible happening to his mother.

Baby Sammy was a tiny, squirming bundle when Dean's parents brought his little brother home for the first time. Daddy had lifted Dean into a chair in the living room, showing the little boy how to position himself, and Mommy very carefully placed the wriggling infant in Dean's waiting arms while Daddy took a photo.

He had looked into the baby's scrunched up face and tried to figure out how he felt about the stranger, and Sammy had stared back at him with wide eyed wonder, already comfortable and safe in his brother's arms. Dean held him tight in his arms, mindful of the fragility of the tiny human. When Mommy wanted to take the baby back, Dean had frowned, liking the warm weight held against his chest. As soon as Sammy relaxed, Dean's fears and jealousy did as well, as he watched his little brother nod off to sleep.

From that moment on, Dean acquired an all encompassing protective instinct over the bitty creature, and when Mommy would tell him to watch out for Sammy while she went to the kitchen to heat a bottle, it was a job the four year old took seriously.

One of the only clear memories Dean had of that night, was being entrusted to carry Sammy out of the burning house. When it had finally become clear that Mommy was gone, Dean remembered what she had always told him, and began to watch over his little brother's every move, determined to keep the baby from harm. Even going so far as to climb into the baby's crib at night to comfort Sammy, when his little brother would cry out the tears of loneliness and grief for both boys over the loss of their mother.

As the years progressed, with Dad becoming more and more engulfed in the supernatural world, hell bent for leather on finding what happened to their mom, Dean kept a steadfast watch over his little brother. Sammy was his responsibility, and it was Dean's job to keep him safe and protected. Dad had never even needed to tell him.

Overnight the boys had lost their mom, and with her, by extension, a large part of the father that John had once been. Sammy was too small to remember what life had been like before the fire, and Dean became determined to make sure that his little brother was given some sort of understanding of what it had been like to be loved and adored by two whole and happy parents. It's what his mom would have wanted him to do, and Dean wasn't going to disappoint her.

He was little, but he tried hard, and it wasn't always easy, because Dad was so different now that sometimes he scared Dean. Coming home after being gone for a few days to places that he wouldn't talk about. Sometimes Dad came home bleeding and damaged, looking like any minute he would burst into tears. Lost in a world of misery that he refused to explain. It seemed like they were forever moving around from one unfamiliar place to another, their home gone in a memory that faded a little more every day over the years.

For Sammy' sake, he tried to make it seem like a game. An adventurous game where they were explorers always going out and seeing new things, and his little brother had never really known the difference. Never known that this wasn't what life was supposed to be. The life that Dean had once had, and never would again.

Sam was kept in the dark about the real reason that Dad was gone so often, and Dean was happy about that, because all too many nights his own sleep was interrupted by nightmares, dark and twisted and terrifying. Worrying about Dad, and what he was facing when he was a way from them. Worry about what would happen to them if their father never came back. Or if he would one night burn on the ceiling of their motel room the way their mother once had.

He shared none of these troubles, because it was his job to shield Sammy from things that could hurt him, and his little brother was going to get a chance to be an innocent kid for a while. Be protected from knowing too much about the horrors of the world around them for as long as Dean could manage it.

Dean tried to make up for their mother's absence as much as he could, even knowing that his fledgling attempts at standing in for her were nothing more than cold comfort.

When Dad was too hurt, or too distracted, or too drunk to care for Sammy, Dean stepped in, sparing his father the task of tending to the boys when his firstborn was capable of doing it for him. He made sure that Sammy was bathed and fed. Tucked into bed at night with a story, because the kid loved books from an early age. He learned how to make a simple version of tomato rice soup that wasn't nearly as good as Mom's had been, trying his hardest to take care of Sammy when he was sick like their mother had taken care of Dean.

And when Sammy had finally found out the truth of their lives, Dean had comforted his brother as he cried himself to sleep over the scariness and unfairness of it all, and renewed his pledge to protect his brother with everything he had. Dad had finally come home, a day too late for Christmas, and Dean had cared for him too, trying his best to smooth over the ruffled feathers of both father and brother, intent on keeping his remaining family members as happy and safe and together as he could.

Because every night Dean had promised his mother that he would, and it was a promise he meant to keep.

/

There was a low buzz in the mud room off the kitchen, and Dean put down the rag he was washing the table with to go and transfer the load of clothes from the washer to the dryer. The landlady had been casually apologetic when she told them that the house did have laundry facilities, but that the washer was currently broken. It hadn't taken Dean long to tinker with the old Maytag, and now it was running like clockwork again. A blessing to their budget that they no longer needed to make frequent trips to a laundromat.

He was pleased to see that the stain remover recommended by the mother of one of Sammy's teammates had done a good job getting the grass stains of out his little brother's jersey. Happy that another run through wasn't going to be necessary, he turned the setting on the dryer to delicate and started the cycle before loading the washer with Sam's school uniforms. Kid went through clothes like crazy these days.

At least they weren't scrounging for quarters every five seconds anymore. Before he went to bed, he would throw in a load of Dad's stuff too, because Lord knew his father wouldn't be in any shape to do it himself, and Dean was pretty sure the man was down to his last clean tee.

The kitchen still smelled like the meatloaf that he painstakingly assembled for dinner. He didn't think it came out bad for a first try. Not nearly as good as...Mom's...had been, but Dean gave it a shot. Sam ate it without complaint, for once, and Dean wasn't looking for teeth on that particular gift horse because his little brother could be a picky little bitch when it came to food.

The kid needed to ingest more calories if he was going to try and build up a little extra muscle. Sammy was shooting up fast, his body elongating in a gangling Stretch Armstrong kind of way. Maybe some protein shakes were the way to go, at this rate. He'd pick some up on the next trip to the grocery store.

He thought about going downstairs and checking to see if Dad had bothered to eat something from the plate Dean had brought him earlier, but he quickly decided against it. His father would eat when he was ready, which probably wouldn't be tonight if history was anything to go by.

Returning to the table, he finished wiping the surface clean before washing out the cloth in the sink and hanging it to dry on the faucet. The house was too quiet, but Dean couldn't make himself turn on the TV or play any music.

Too many things reminded him of her, and he was barely keeping it together as it was. All it was going to take was one small push off the edge, and he would go spiraling into an abyss of razor sharp memories, and he wasn't quite sure if he could find his way back to the surface again if that happened.

Off to the side of the sink were the royal blue latex gloves that Sam wore when washing the dishes after dinner. Dean hadn't been able to resist the Watch out for your manicure, Princess comment that was a completely reasonable reaction to his little brother's insistence that they buy them. Blue, not yellow, as if that little distinction made wearing them less girly.

Sam had gone upstairs right after his chores were finished tonight, and Dean hadn't tried to stop him. The last thing he needed today was his little brother's sad poop face, or some uncomfortable caring and sharing moment when all Dean wanted to do was try and keep his heart from disintegrating.

It destroyed him, more than his kid brother could possibly realize, that Dean couldn't help him understand how much Mom had meant to them all. How her smile and her laughter and gentle touch kept them warm and afloat.

He had to stop.

Couldn't bear to keep thinking about her and how the loss of her had scarred his very essence.

Better to keep busy.

Pay homage to her by doing the things she would want done. Scrub the counter, because she didn't like messes. Then mend the rip in Dad's green flannel and try not to think about what might have caused it. Cut up the melon in the fridge for Sam's breakfast in the morning, so that he could be sure that his little brother ate something before school without coercion.

Keep moving. _Always moving_.

Because to stop would mean that the excruciating assault of memories would threaten his very sanity, his very ability to breathe, and he couldn't allow that. Like a shark that could never stop swimming. No rest for the wicked or the weak.

He needed to be strong.

For his father, who on this day became a shadow of the man he once was, and needed his firstborn's steady shoulder to lean on.

For his little brother, who needed someone to take care of the little things in his life, because he had never had a mother to do them in his memory.

To be the glue that held his family together when life proved to be too hard, and too cruel, and too much to fight.

He reached into his back pocket and grabbed his wallet. Gently withdrawing the creased photo he kept tucked away behind his assortment of aliases and credit cards. There she was. Still as beautiful as she was on the last day, when she had tucked him into bed and told him that angels were watching over him. Her arm around his four year old neck as they smiled. He gently rubbed the photo and thought about how it was the last time he felt truly happy.

"Don't worry, Mom. I promise, I'll take care of them."

/

When Sam was in first grade, Dad brought them to a new town a week before Mother's Day. Sam didn't know it then, but there had been a rash of killings in the town involving the removal of the victims' eyes and tongues. Something John had never seen before, but suspected that it was probably in his particular wheelhouse.

It had been an innocent mistake by the teacher.

As part of their afternoon art session, she sat her group of first graders down at the activities table and gave them colorful pieces of construction paper, glitter, stickers, markers and glue sticks. It was a simple assignment.

Make a card for Mom.

The teacher wasn't insensitive. After almost a year of parent/teacher conferences, she knew which families had moms and which didn't. The kids without a mother in the house had already been separated for the day and given the chance to join an afternoon viewing of Sesame Street in the neighboring second session of first grade.

Overworked and understaffed, it was unfortunate oversight that she didn't think to ask Sammy, the new boy, about his own family.

Faced with crippling nerves over upsetting his new teacher by not doing the assignment. Combined with the petrified reluctance of making a card for his absent mother, knowing that talking about her only made Daddy and Dean mad at him. Sam had sat helpless in his seat, not knowing what to do, with fat tears of fear and frustration, and then, ultimately, humiliation, streaming down his face.

His teacher's frantic attempts to get him to tell her why he was crying only upset him more, and by the time he was hysterical and sobbing, Dean had somehow managed to hear his brother's distress from a long hallway away. Darting out of his fifth grade classroom, with the chastising tones of his own teacher echoing behind him, as he ran to Sammy's aid.

Sammy had flung himself into Dean's arms, and his big brother stumbled for a minute under the unexpected weight before managing to drop himself into a tiny chair, where Sammy scrambled onto his lap and held on tight.

The school had fortunately been able to reach John by phone because, just by dumb luck, he was in the town library researching, as opposed to actively on the hunt. Ten minutes later, he strode down the hallway of the elementary school, tall and brooding and clearly pissed. Dean had taken one look at his father's foreboding face and paled under his spate of tan freckles. Snapping to attention, even as he held Sammy sniffling under his arm.

The boys were expecting their father to be angry, because he had warned them a million times to behave themselves and not cause any problems at their schools. But after John got the gist of the trouble, he had simply picked up his teary six year old and grabbed his ten year old by the hand, something he never did with Dean anymore, turned on his heel and walked out.

Dad didn't yell. He didn't rant or remind them of the risks of being noticed. He leaned against the hood of the Impala and held them in his arms until they were both calm and breathing easily again. Then he took the boys out for ice cream, not mentioning one word about what happened in the school. Later that night, John had killed the witch that was responsible for the mutilated corpses, and the next day they were on the road again.

/

There were three bags of candy sitting untouched on Sam's dresser, and the very sight of them offended him.

He hated Halloween. Hated it with the disdain he only reserved for people who abused animals, and getting stitches without anything to numb the pain.

There were no pleasant memories attached to it from his childhood. Their lives were scary enough as it was, and he certainly had never needed some plastic mask to add to the horrors he actually saw in real life.

It didn't help that Dad mentally checked out for a few days right about that time every year.

When Sam was little, and had wanted the fun of an outing with other kids, dressed up and getting free candy, his father had never been able to summon up the will to take the boys to a store and drop a couple of bucks on the dime store disguises that all the other students at school had.

Dean had tried to make it up to him a few times. Either rummaging around the hotel rooms for something that could pass, maybe, possibly, as a disguise so at least Sam wasn't the only kid at the school parties just wearing his street clothes. Or, worse, risking a five fingered discount to snag a tube of make up to paint Sam's face with, or a flimsy, plastic wand, so he could pretend to be a magician, and potentially incurring an ass beating of epic proportions if Dad caught him.

Not that they were allowed to go out trick-or-treating anyway.

In Dad's fucked up world, Halloween was a night of actual spirit activity, and John wasn't having his kids running around, unprotected, amid the potential of real danger and chaos. So Sam would have to sit in school the next day, hearing about all the fun the other children had, big piles of candy in their lunch boxes, while Sam sat quiet and tried not to be noticed as he ate the battered PB&J sandwich that Dean gave him for his own meal.

Later, as the years passed, and Dean had more autonomy over their spending, he always bought Sam a bag of Halloween candy to enjoy during the night, in an attempt to take the sting out of missing out with the other kids. He would also wait for the after Halloween sales, and buy a couple of other bags cheap the next day, so that they could enjoy sweets for a little longer.

Sam was past the days when a bag of candy could make up for missing out on a regular activity because of what their family did.

And he was really not going to be appeased this year. When he was supposed to be able to do normal things like regular guys.

Like taking his hot girlfriend to a Halloween party.

Well, kind of, sort of, his hot girlfriend, anyway.

Dean had managed to get Dad in a charitable mood, the weekend Sam was so sick. While the two of them were playing Bob Vila in the basement, his big brother convinced their father that Sam wouldn't be in any danger going to the Homecoming dance at his school the next week.

He had even sweetened the pot by assuring Dad that he would offer himself up as a chaperone, just to make sure that little brother was well guarded in case anything supernatural just happened to be, on the random off-chance, lying in wait at a freakin' dance in the gym of a Catholic school.

Sam had nearly laughed himself sick at that thought, but somehow his big brother conned the adults on the planning committee into thinking he would be a responsible guardian of the students attending.

Dean Winchester.

The guy that was more likely to spike the punch than keep horny teenagers on the straight and narrow. It still amused him.

With consent grudgingly obtained, Sam had asked Kristin to the dance, and her squeals of excitement were still ringing in his ears a day later. That next Friday, Dean had given him money to pay for a corsage and tickets to the dance, as well as the keys to the Impala to pick up his date. Wearing his pretext suit that Dad had gotten for him last year, once Sam started looking old enough to pass for an intern during investigations, he had picked Kristin up and spent the next few hours having the time of his life.

Kristin was edged out of the crown for Homecoming Queen by the slightly more popular Jenny Caldwell, the head cheerleader, but she did get a spot on the court. Sam had clapped wildly in the audience when the silly rhinestone tiara was placed on her head because she looked so incredibly happy. He and his brother were left utterly shocked, a few minutes later, when Sam's own name was called for a place on the court as well.

Sam was still a fairly unknown quantity at the school, but apparently Kristin had enough pull to influence the votes, and the other students had enough curiosity about the new guy, to elect him.

They danced, and socialized, and drank the spiked punch that left Sam wondering if it really was his brother's doing by the grin on Dean's face. Although, probably not, since his big brother would have kicked his ass for driving his Baby under the influence. Sam had stopped at one cup just to be safe anyway. Towards the end of the evening, Sam led Kristin out to the Impala to drive her home, and the two of them had spent several pleasurable minutes in a heavy make-out session in the front seat.

Sam had waltzed into the house exactly thirteen minutes late for his midnight curfew. Dean was pissed, glaring at him testily as he held out his hand for the return of the car keys, but otherwise let the infraction go without further comment, and the younger brother headed up to bed, his mind swimming with the pleasure of a perfect evening out with a beautiful girl.

During the next couple of weeks, Sam spent as much time dating Kristin as he could. It was hard with the limited free time at his disposal. He had to be home after five for the mandatory training that no coaxing or pleading on his part persuaded his big brother to release him from. He was allowed to go back out afterwards, provided that Dean knew exactly where he was and who he was with, and that he was home by his school night curfew of nine o'clock.

Something that Sam wasn't about to share with Kristin.

A few times he had managed to take her out for dinner. Dean was going overboard in his attempts to give his little brother normal. Sam had a list of assigned household chores. Some of them being things that neither brother ever had to worry about before, like raking leaves in the front lawn, but that was fine, because Sam enjoyed embracing the mundane of suburbia.

So his brother had also started to slip him some money every week as sort of an allowance, because Dean didn't need to be told what it felt like to be a teenage guy with no cash of his own in his pocket. Sam was trying to squirrel most of it away, because he already knew that his college applications were going to take money he couldn't come out and ask his brother for, but he still splurged a little on taking Kristin out on the few occasions he could wrangle permission.

As a compromise, Dean encouraged him to invite friends home for an evening, so Sam had asked some of the guys from his team to come over, and Kristin brought some of her cheerleader friends. Dean ordered a stack of budget busting pizzas, determining the expense worthy when it meant that the kids in Sam's new social circle could discretely be put through the appropriate tests.

When Kristin started hinting about a Halloween party being thrown at the home of one of the football players, Sam already knew he would never be allowed to go.

For one, Halloween was falling on a Tuesday this year, and even if Sam would be permitted out, he still would have to be home early for curfew, and the party wasn't even starting until eight o'clock. It didn't matter anyway, since the Winchester brothers didn't leave the relative safety of wherever they were currently making their home on the night of Halloween.

Ever.

It was a losing prospect to even try to argue for consent, because he didn't need to go another few rounds with his father to know it would never happen. Although it didn't stop him from appealing to his big brother for leniency.

Dean had been sympathetic, but firm, because he actually agreed with Dad on this one, and that discussion had ended with heated words, a couple of insults, a few threats, and Sam slamming his bedroom door shut. When Dean had knocked on his door the next evening after dinner, because Sam was still too angry to keep him company, and gave his little brother the traditional bags of candy, Sam had dismissively shoved them to the dresser and slammed the door again.

Because sometimes Dean just didn't understand him at all.

Sam wasn't a little kid anymore who could just be placated into submission over the jacked up way they were raised, and if his brother was paying any attention to him, in the least, he would know that Sam didn't eat candy anymore.

Well, he did. Sometimes. Occasionally. Okay, a lot. But that wasn't the point!

Maybe it was the fact that today was Mom's anniversary. Or maybe because Kristin couldn't stop talking about how much fun the party had been. Maybe it was both. Either way the youngest Winchester was feeling pretty miserable right about now.

Sam lay on his bed, on his stomach, arms wrapped around his pillow and staring out the window, since he could never quite manage to look at the ceilings above any bed he ever slept in.

On one hand, he knew he was being an asshole. His big brother had been nothing but kind, helpful and understanding the past few months. Sam wasn't stupid. He was aware of everything Dean was giving up to give him this chance. He could tell that Dean missed being on the road. That his brother paced the house like a caged lion when he thought Sam wasn't paying attention.

Maybe it was the knowledge that he knew Dean was expecting him to get his desire for regular life out of his system and then get down to the life of a full time hunter.

They hadn't talked about it.

Not in so many words, but Sam knew his brother. Could already guess that this was the expected outcome after his graduation. Dad was expecting it too. Sam could see it in his eyes during every meet up. His father had been trying way too hard lately to suppress the hunting talk in some kind of twisted patronizing attempt to make it seem like this was a vacation from hunting, and not the launch of Sam's college plans, which it was actually going to be if Sam had anything to say about it.

This is what Mom would have wanted for him. He was sure of it.

Before, their family had been a run-of-the-mill, every day, average nuclear unit. They had a normal house. Dad co-owned his own normal business. Mom was a normal suburban housewife. Dean had friends and played T-ball. Sam was pretty sure that somewhere in that cozy picture perfect life was a backyard where they had barbecues too.

Mom wouldn't have wanted to see her husband crazed and strung out most of the time. Her kids running on a perpetual wheel of terror as they faced down horrors that were sometimes so evil, even Hollywood backed away from writing about them. Dragged from town to town like luggage in a lonely and sad drifter existence. Wondering every day if it would be their last.

At least, that's what Sam assumed.

In reality, he didn't know. Mostly because the only two family members he had left unanimously refused to talk about her. Not that he hadn't asked a million questions over the years, thirsty for any scrap of information they would reluctantly give, like people passing by a beggar, homeless and hungry on the street, just needing the tiniest amount of mercy and kindness to get through the day.

Sam shouldn't have to beg for information about his own mother.

While it was true that he didn't have the relationship with her that his father and brother had, it didn't mean that he was a familial afterthought. She belonged to him, too. He was her baby, and if anyone deserved to have details given to them about what she was like, and the hobbies she had, and the dreams she dreamed, it was the son who didn't have one clear memory of her to sustain him.

Dad and Dean guarded their memories of her like selfish pit bulls. They hid all the details of the family life before like greedy hoarders, unwilling to share even the tiniest fraction of insight with a boy that just wanted to know his mom. Sam knew they were hurting. That thoughts of his mother caused them physical pain, but couldn't they see that he was hurting too? In a way that they may not be able to comprehend, but they could do something about?

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair at all to ask Sam to devote himself wholly to a crusade waged in the name of the mother he wasn't even allowed to ask about. He could summon up some anger, sure, because as a son he should feel the need to fight for justice on her behalf. That's what a good son would do, right?

But it still wasn't fair.

If he was expected to be willing to devote the entirety of his existence to hunt down her killer, and the killers of other mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, shouldn't he at least be given the chance to hear about what kind of person his own mother was? Shouldn't his father and brother, who had known her as a real living person, be willing to paint a multi-dimensional, vividly technicolor painting of her so that Sam could understand exactly who he was fighting for?

Not shut him out and demand blind loyalty and obedience, when all he wanted to know was what her laugh sounded like. Or what kind of perfume she wore. What her favorite flower was, and did she like soccer?

Why was that so much to ask?

Their lives were a mess. Their little family warped and damaged and mutilated by a life lived in the shadowy underbelly of evil and depravity.

Sam was going to get out. He was going to do it for his mother, because surely Mary Winchester, normal mom and loving wife, would want to see at least one of her kids live his life in the daylight. One of her boys was going to walk in the sunshine and be safe. He owed it to her.

The alarm clock on his nightstand glared red at him as his mind wandered. Realizing that it was almost time for lights out, he pushed himself up from his bed to wash up and get undressed. Because of the day, Dad was here with them, as he always was.

At least physically anyway.

In a regular year, John would already be passed out by now, his face wearing a mask of naked grief so raw and excruciating, even in unconsciousness, that Sam couldn't bear to look at him. A parade could march through their motel room and never breach his father's absent mind in tequila soaked sleep.

This was opposite year.

Where day was night and black was white. For all he knew, Dad might decide that this was the year he was going to take a moonlight drunken stroll through the house, and Sam wasn't going to risk his wrath and get punished for not being in bed with the lights off by ten.

Especially not when booze tended to make Dad more likely to lash out, and especially not on this particular day.

He washed his face, and brushed his teeth, pulling on his usual tee and pajama pants before flipping off the light switch. In the darkness of his bedroom, he knelt on the side of his bed and clasped his hands in prayer. He didn't really know who he was praying to every night. God, or the angels. Maybe saints. Maybe his mother.

Who knows how heaven really works.

All Sam knew was that he had to have some kind of faith. Something to save him from the wreckage of the life they lived.

Deep down, in a pit of his own being so remote he could barely reach it, he knew there was a darkness inside of him building. Sometimes he wondered if it was a byproduct of the terrible things they had done. That the evil they dealt with so often was somehow tainting him. Claiming him. When his temper got the best of him, he wondered if it was a symptom, a residue of a young life spent in the presence of real malevolence.

He prayed hard that night. Harder than he normally did. For guidance to control his anger. For patience of his failings. Understanding of his honorable goals. Forgiveness for not being a better son and brother. He prayed for his father's and brother's safety. For his mother's love and eternal peace.

And when he couldn't pray anymore, he climbed into his bed and took the framed photo from his nightstand in his hands. Illuminated by the light gray ambient light of the moon, shining brightly in his window, he looked at the young, happy faces of his parents. Dad in his fatigues, and Mom looking so beautiful next to him.

It was only a copy of the original photo. Dad kept it in his journal, plucking it out from time to time when especially melancholy. A few years ago, Dean had sneaked it out of the worn pages, just long enough to run to an all night Kinkos in the city where they were crashing for a few days. He made a copy for Sam that night, encasing it in a frame from the gift shop next to to the motel.

It was Sam's most precious possession.

"I'm going to make you proud, Mom."

/

It wasn't the scariest creature Dean had ever encountered, but it was still fugly.

Pasty, slick and rough skinned. A huge gaping maw that stared back at him.

As it lay motionless in front of him, the young hunter circled around it in wary anticipation as he plotted his next move. He was prepared. His blades were sharpened. A large supply of salt within easy reach, just in case things got difficult.

He had spent a large part of the last week completing the research he knew he was going to need, because Dad had drilled into both of his boys the absolute requirement of being completely informed and prepared at all times.

He glared at it with a critical eye. Dean had taken on his first werewolf when he was sixteen for fuck's sake. He certainly could handle this.

"Christ, Dean. It's just a turkey. Put it in the oven, already. I'm not eating KFC this year."

Dean looked up from the kitchen table and smacked the back of Sam's head as his little brother strolled through the kitchen.

"Ow! Quit it, jerk."

"Don't rush me, bitch. Perfection takes time."

/

Thanksgiving dinner wasn't perfect, regardless of his brother's noble intentions.

Dean and Dad had cooked. Which was already surreal enough in Sam's mind, since Dad had never made them a Thanksgiving dinner in their entire lives. Of course it had been Dean spearheading the whole operation, but still.

The turkey was a little dry, the mashed potatoes a little soupy. The stuffing was mushy, and somehow they even managed to make the jarred gravy lumpy. The rolls were a bit burned on the bottom, and the green bean casserole that Dean had assumed would pass for a vegetable in Sam's world looked like a big pan of snot.

It was still the best meal that Sam had ever tasted.

Uncle Bobby had joined them, bringing a pumpkin and apple pie that he made from scratch. Sam remembered the salvage man telling him once about all the pies that his late wife would bake and these were her recipes. Dean had absolutely flipped his shit, eating two pieces of each before getting scolded by their father for being a complete pig.

Dad was drinking some, but not enough to blur his senses. He was quiet and contemplative at his end of the table. One minute smiling. Not quite enough to reach his eyes, but still smiling just the same. The next he would be staring at his sons with a painful wistfulness in his eyes.

The house was warm, despite the first few flurries of snow that were starting to swirl outside, and there was a ball game on TV in the background.

Sam looked from one family member to the other in turn. Taking in their faces when they didn't know he was looking. Happy, content, mischievous. A little sad.

Wondering what it was going to be like next year.

Worried that this was going to be the only Thanksgiving dinner he would ever have with the people he loved.

.


	9. December 2000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Normal life isn't always smooth sailing

**Fratricide:** from the Latin words _frater_ "brother" and _cida_ "killer," or _cidum_ "a killing," both from _caedere_ "to kill, to cut down") is the act of killing one's brother.

It's a story literally as old as time.

From the very beginning, starting with the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, brothers have found themselves locked in mortal combat, until one of them triumphs and commits one of the greatest atrocities known to man.

Killing your own brother.

From the mythical story of twins Romulus and Remus of Rome, to the Egyptian god Osiris, lord of the underworld, mutilated and murdered by Set. The literary King Hamlet, slayed by his brother Claudius in Shakespeare's tale. To Genghis Khan of early Mongolia, who killed his older brother Begter.

Even Hollywood has been known to spin the stories with characters such as Godfather Michael Corleone, ruthlessly ordering the cold blooded shooting of his brother Fredo.

History, real and imaginary, is full of examples of what happens when brothers simply cannot get along.

And in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Dean Winchester was rapidly feeling the urge to kill his little brother Sam with increasing vigor.

Of course, he wouldn't.

For someone who had spent the last seventeen years of his life giving everything he had in him to keep the little shit alive, killing him at this juncture would render all of his previously hard won efforts moot.

Although, if Sam didn't knock off the attitude right the fuck now, Dean might not be able to be held liable for his actions.

And Sam might find himself surprised to realize that you didn't have to actually shed your brother's blood to mortally wound him

/

If Sam had any self preservation instincts at all, he would have thought twice about getting into that car in the first place. Proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his brother had been right all along.

/

Early December was a stressful time at a competitive school like Holy Rosary. Semester finals were approaching with the barreling intensity of a bullet train, and class rankings were being clawed for with all of the aggression of a MMA cage fight.

There are no kindhearted Christian attitudes when it comes to GPAs at private prep schools. On the heels of a triumphant SAT test, where Sam had scored in the 99th percentile, he was going full bore with his plans to earn the best possible college education.

Sam was used to working hard at his studies. Life on the road isn't necessarily conducive to academic achievement unless one is truly dedicated. Especially when one had a big brother that spent the majority of his time either bouncing off the walls in some sort of caffeinated and chocolaty induced frenzy or mercilessly teasing you strictly out of sheer boredom.

The younger Winchester had to learn, from an early age, how to block out unwanted distractions if he was to have any hope at all of making the kinds of grades he knew he needed for higher education.

This was the first time that Sam had needed to multitask adding a girlfriend into the mix, however.

Having Kristin attend that Halloween party without him still stung on some unacknowledged subconscious level, although she had been relatively understanding about the demands on his schedule, and his restrictions at home. As perky and popular as she was, Kristin had educational goals too, and was not without the need to spend evenings at home keeping up with studies as well.

Or so she said.

She had assured him on several occasions that she didn't expect him to be available every day, and Sam had smiled his adorably shy smile and blushed, because he couldn't believe that he had found such a beautiful, amazing and accommodating girl.

He had a group of study buddies from the smart kids clique that rotated homes for evening sessions a couple of nights during the week. Dean wasn't terribly thrilled with the idea of his little brother being absent for several hours where he couldn't keep a close eye on Sam's surroundings without stalking him, but Sam needed some space, and big brother was going to just grit his teeth and bear it over the uncertainty and let him go.

The proper precautions were taken, because Dad wasn't going to allow it without them. Under the guise of dropping Sam off and having a friendly introductory meeting with the parents of Sam's study buddies, the houses had all been surreptitiously investigated and then vetted with the Winchester Stamp of Non Supernatural Activity Approval.

Dean also made sure that their own house was as comfortable and welcoming as possible, in an attempt to maybe persuade the study group that their sessions might be more relaxed and fun held in a house monitored by a cool older brother instead of overbearing and nosy parents.

In truth, the other kids in the study group did enjoy their sessions at the Winchester house, and it was only because Sam was chomping at the bit to get some distance from his brother that he couldn't see that he was the only one who would rather be someplace else.

Dean tried not to be offended by this obvious slight, and vigorously suppressed the little voice inside of him that was caustically taunting and suggesting that it was because Sam thought that his older brother wasn't smart enough to be comfortable around his fellow nerds.

It was already starting to snow when Sam's alarm went off that Thursday morning.

Predictably, Dean banged on his door, shouting out his customary and enthusiastic wake up call. Reluctantly pulling himself from the warm coziness of his bed, Sam trudged down the hall and used the bathroom, splashing water on his face to help clear the cobwebs from his head a little more.

Still dark outside, because five-thirty came very early in the winter months, he stumbled back to his bedroom and pulled on his sweats and running shoes. He could hear motion downstairs in the living room, and wasn't surprised because Dean always managed to get up and moving first.

Dean could live on four hours of sleep.

Always had been able, from Sam's earliest memories. It was truly annoying sometimes, because his brother's restless energy could set Sam's teeth on edge on occasion. It was like Dean just wouldn't relax, only getting the barest amount of rest to keep his body from shutting down.

He could do absolute marathon drives when they were on the road. Always alert and never letting his guard down, even for a moment.

By the time Sam shuffled down the stairs, Dean was already limbering up for their run. Sam gave his older brother the barest of acknowledging grunts, pulling on his warmest hoodie before the two of them darted off into the dark, muffled and chilly pre-dawn morning.

It took a few minutes to get into a steady rhythm, but once Sam did, he relished the pump of adrenaline through his veins, urging his brain to wakefulness. Moving silently, trying not to slip on the snow slick streets, with only the occasional huff of breathy exertion pushed from their lungs, the brothers ran side by side without speaking.

They had a set route.

Exactly five miles long, as ordered, on relatively flat terrain. Dressed in layers to protect themselves against the briskness of the early morning air of a South Dakota winter, it didn't take long for them to start to sweat as they went through their paces. Sam had a longer stride, but what Dean lacked in length, he made up for in raw power, so they were pretty evenly matched.

Normally they didn't mind the workout. A lifetime spent conditioning alongside their sibling, competitive, yet also encouraging, they spent their mornings in a companionable quietness, never feeling the need to make small talk as they ran. Lately, however, Sam was feeling more and more irritation at what he perceived as his big brother hovering over his every move.

It was stifling on occasion, and though he knew that Dean did it only out of concern, the new family dynamic of living in separate spaces was growing on the younger brother.

With a semblance of independence and privacy that neither had ever known before, after years spent in the confining closeness of tiny motel rooms, the constant presence of his brother forever in his peripheral vision was starting to chafe.

Sam was used to their lives on the road. While they traveled from town to town, his big brother would often be away in the evenings. Either working or, more likely, hustling at pool or poker or, even more likely, in the bed of a willing young lady, Sam had time alone to himself to read or study, or even watch some porn when he could get away with it.

Dean didn't go out much anymore.

His big brother's usual habits couldn't be sustained in a town where they had planted roots. You can't hustle in bars where the regulars knew you. You didn't find an endless stream of women to buy into your ever changing background story and aliases so that there were no strings to the one night stands.

Dean had a steady job in the day while Sam went to school. They weren't well off, but they were getting by easier than ever before, financially, so there was no urgency to go out and make risky moves to earn fast cash.

Sam knew his brother went to the salvage yard in the evenings when he was with his study group, or when he could slip away for a few hours with Kristin at the local coffee house where the popular kids clique hung out at night. Dean was always promptly on time to pick his little brother up and return him back to the house in accordance with Dad's proclamations, and once they were home, Dean didn't go back out.

Even though there was nothing in the rules preventing him from doing so.

It was as if his already maniacally protective older brother had dialed his watch dog duties all the way up to eleven, reluctant to leave Sam's immediate proximity.

And it was making Sam _crazy_.

As they ran, Sam was suddenly overcome with a prickle of annoyance over the incessant closeness, the constant feeling of an inescapable fraternal shadow. A sense of suffocating claustrophobia engulfed him, and he pumped his arms harder and picked up the pace, leaving his brother slightly in the distance of the snowy street a mile from home.

At first, Dean surged himself closer, probably thinking that his brother was just trying to push them a little harder, but when Sam kicked himself even further forward, Dean dropped back and let him go on alone.

Sam felt a slight pang of guilt, but it passed as quickly as it had come, and he was already upstairs and heading towards the shower by the time he heard his brother enter the house behind him.

He took longer to get ready than normal, reluctant to make his way downstairs where he knew he would have to suffer the scrutiny of an overprotective guardian forever examining his every breath and movement under a microscope. Always keenly aware, with a fine tuned laser focus that could make Sam feel like the family lab rat. Sometimes the burning white hot intensity of his brother's observation of him just left him feeling blinded and scorched from the heat of Dean's sharp assessing eyes.

He knew he was being touchy and unreasonable.

Knew that Dean had been tasked with the responsibility for Sam's safety from a time when his brother was just a small child himself. That was another thing that Sam resented about their father.

John had his eldest son so brainwashed into putting Sam's needs and safety first, it was almost like their father didn't see that maybe Dean needed to be taken care of too.

The soothing hot water of the shower calmed him and lowered the emotions running through him to a more reasonable and manageable level. He dressed, grabbed his backpack and headed downstairs, determined to be less of an ass, because Dean hadn't really done anything this morning to deserve the relative cold shoulder Sam had given him.

Dean was in the kitchen making coffee, and the smell of the dark roast wafted through the house with an inviting aroma. Before grabbing a cup, Sam headed to the small alcove between the kitchen and the mudroom, as was his usual habit these days.

Right before Thanksgiving, Dean had brought home a second hand HP desktop for Sam to use for his schoolwork.

The manager of the electronics shop near Holy Rosary had come to Singer Salvage hoping for a cheap price for a rebuilt transmission. The guy's finances were bumpy and Dean offered a horse trade, scoring a computer for his little brother. A couple of days later, Dean reworked their budget and arranged for internet service as well.

Technically, it was the family computer, and Sam knew that he would be expected to step up his contribution in research for his father, but it was nice to finally have a computer at his disposal full time. Since then, he had gotten into the habit of checking his email first thing every morning, and reading things that he found interesting, instead of just looking for cases and the lore to go with them.

Dean had also picked up a small desk and chair from the Salvation Army in town, and the pieces fit nicely in the little alcove.

Throwing his backpack on the floor near the door, Sam slipped into the chair and booted the computer up, throwing his brother a small smile of appreciation when he found a cup of coffee, already doctored to his tastes, placed on the desk next to him.

At least Dean didn't seem to be holding a grudge about their earlier run.

The first email to pop up was from Kristin, and for a moment, Sam felt another wave of irritation over the fact that he'd had to lie and tell her that he turned his phone off after ten for study purposes, so she often sent emails instead to talk about potential plans for the next day. Text messages were limited and expensive, and Dean discouraged excessive uses of them unless it was for hunting.

It took only a second for his day to turn to shit again.

Kristin had left a very enthusiastic message about a party being held at Smith Harris' house that evening.

Another football player, and the best friend of Trenton, Kristin's reluctant ex, Smith was one of the few troublemakers at Sam's school. His parents were wealthy. They traveled a lot and left Smith home to his own devices, which usually included regular bouts of underage drinking and recreational drug use.

They contributed a lot of money to the campaigns of the local politicians and, in return, their son was generally left alone by local law enforcement.

Tonight was Smith's birthday, and with parents too consumed with their own lives to be bothered to spend it with their son, he was throwing a huge bash for himself, and everyone was invited to come.

Sam's sympathies for Smith's lack of parental involvement were practically non-existent at the moment, as he felt a flash of jealousy for the freedom that his classmate was given by his family, while Sam was practically held hostage by his own.

Kristin insisted that Sam needed to make an appearance this time, regardless of what his study schedule looked like. For the first time, she officially referred to him as her boyfriend, the word making him smile with all the dimples, and she was very clear that he was expected to escort her.

The problem was, Dean would never agree.

The Harris house was on his big brother's no-fly list.

All that time getting cozy with the parents of Sam's teammates had given Dean an inside track on who the problem children were. Which of course, Sam now realized, had been the point, and that rankled him even more. The school was small enough that just about everyone knew everybody else, so naturally his overbearing ass hat of a brother would have ferreted out the dirty info by any means necessary.

He shut the computer down and sidled over to the kitchen table. Already set out was the container of granola that he had developed a recent taste for, along with a banana, a container of milk and a glass of juice. Instead of being appreciative of his brother's thoughtfulness, the gesture just ramped up his irritation another notch as he unfairly compared Dean's pushy actions to their father's overbearing manner.

"Why do you always have to assume you know what I want for breakfast?"

Sam's blunt statement forced Dean to glance up from his own plate, a look of surprise and confusion on his face.

"What?"

"Maybe I was planning on having something else," Sam bit back, already removing the offending items from the table. "Maybe I wanted yogurt today."

Dean gave him a questioning glare and cocked an eyebrow.

"Okaaay. Have some damn yogurt."

_Seriously? Where did that come from?_

His brother's acquiescence did nothing to quell the frustration swirling on the tip of Sam's tongue.

"That's not the point, Dean," he continued, not placated. "You just assume. You never ask my opinion."

Years of dealing with his little brother's moods had made Dean an expert on knowing exactly when Sam was lashing out about something totally unrelated to whatever childish fight he was trying to pick.

"Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning, Sammy?"

"It's _Sam_."

Dean rolled his eyes and held his hands up in surrender. Already a little miffed about his brother's unscheduled hundred meter dash earlier, and now not willing to get into an argument either on appropriate breakfast selections or nicknames.

"Fine, Sam. Eat what you want. Yogurt, cereal, one of your textbooks. I don't really care, but decide, already. We're leaving in ten minutes."

He got up from his own seat and rinsed off his plate before pouring another cup. When he turned around, Sam was still seething in his chair, making no move to get into gear.

Kid just couldn't make this easy.

"What? Seriously. What's got your panties in a bunch?"

"Nothing," Sam spat out, jumping up from his chair with such force it was almost knocked down behind him. He grabbed his backpack and stomped to the front door, throwing it open with unnecessary force and slamming it behind him.

Dean dumped his recently poured cup into the sink and shut the machine off. It wasn't even eight a.m. yet and he already had a killer headache. His little brother had been an absolute pain in the ass for the past few days, and while he had tried to be patient about it, it was really beginning to grate on his nerves.

By the time he had grabbed his coat, secured the house and made it to the car, Sam was sitting in the passenger seat looking ready to spit nails.

Dean made the executive decision to work him extra hard during their sparring tonight because clearly the kid needed to let off some steam.

The snow had continued during the morning, and the roads were slippery. The Impala was as steady as they came, and Dean handled her like a gentle lover as they sledded through the streets on the way to Sam's school. Next to him, Sam sat quietly, head leaning against the window, lost in thought.

At least he wasn't arguing.

Dean was feeling grateful for small mercies right about now. Sooner or later the kid would open up to him about whatever was going on in that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of his. His little brother was a chronic brooder.

Been there and done that. Wrote the book and got the T-shirt.

'Kristin called me her boyfriend."

The quiet statement startled Dean out of his thoughts, and he looked over briefly to see his little brother staring plaintively at him. For a moment, Dean wondered if Sam was upset by that, because Dean would have felt corralled by a girl that labeled him.

But then again, Sam was definitely a more relationship oriented kind of guy. He decided to go for congratulatory.

"Sammy, you sly dog! Good for you, kiddo."

He was rewarded with one of his little brother's shy grins and knew that he had been right that Sam was happy about his official relationship status.

"You know," Dean continued, wanting to keep the light mood going, "Dad isn't expecting us this weekend. Why don't you take her someplace special Saturday? I'll let you have the car for a night."

Sam smiled even wider and Dean smirked back, happy that the kid was climbing out of the doldrums he had been mired in all morning.

He probably should have known that it was too good to be true.

"Actually, she wants me to take her to a party." Pause "Tonight."

Dean pursed his lips and cast a side eyed glance at his now squirming little brother. He thought about it for a few seconds and decided not to dismiss it out of hand. Sam knew the rules. Would probably not ask for permission to do something that would break them.

Of course he was completely wrong.

"There's a birthday party, and everyone is going."

Dean cocked an eyebrow and looked pointedly at his little brother, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sam seemed to take a deep breath and glanced casually out the window.

"It's at Smith Harris' house."

"No."

Sam seemed startled by the speed and vehemence of the answer, but he wasn't cowed enough to back down. They could talk about this like two reasonable people.

"Dean, c'mon, man. It will be fine. You know most of the people going."

"And you're not going to be one of them."

Now frustration was setting in, and Sam felt the renewed vigor of his earlier testiness come slamming back at a roaring speed.

"I can handle myself against vengeful spirits, werewolves and ghouls. I think I can manage to hold my own against a few high school students."

Dean scowled and stared at his brother while he waited at a red street light, wondering when it was that Sam's common sense left him to go on vacation to the Bahamas.

"What part of no didn't you get, little brother? That kid is nothing but trouble."

"So what?" Sam fumed. "What makes you think that I can't watch out for myself and make the right choices to stay safe?"

The light turned green and Dean pushed the car forward, correcting her gently when the rear tires slid slightly to the right.

"The choices have already been made, Sam. By Dad. He was very clear that you don't hang out with kids that use drugs."

Sam shook his head derisively, building up the steam to tell his brother, in no uncertain terms, what he felt about Dad's decision making process most of the time.

"Yeah, 'cause Dad is such a paragon of virtue," he huffed. "Dude, he's had us breaking laws since puberty."

"Well, his word is still law in our house," Dean stated with finality, tired of beating that particular poor dead horse. "So you are just going have to deal with that."

Over in the passenger seat, Dean could tell that his little brother was seething, and he could understand why, from a certain point of view. Sam's reins were pretty tight, and he usually endured them without too much complaint.

But reason and common sense sometimes flew directly out the window when a pretty girl entered the picture. He liked Kristin well enough, but she was definitely one of those beautiful girls that were accustomed to getting their way.

He decided for distraction, because he didn't really want to fight with his brother all day.

"Besides, don't you have your study group over at Michael's house tonight?"

Sam was looking away from him, head leaning again against the side window. The fight seemed to have gone directly out of his sails, and while Dean didn't like to see the kid so upset, he wasn't backing down on this one.

"Yeah."

The rest of the trip was silent, and by the time Dean pulled up to the drop off curb, Sam's face was pinched in a seriously pissed off scowl. Hoping to diffuse his brother, he went for conciliatory.

"She'll understand, Sam. If she really cares about you."

"Just shut up, Dean," Sam muttered angrily, getting out and turning to close the car door.

The uncalled for attack got Dean's back up, because he didn't take crap like that from anyone except their father, and he certainly wasn't going to take it from his snot nosed, pain in the ass brother.

"I'll be here at five sharp. I suggest you pull that stick out of your ass before then, or we're going to have a problem."

Sam's eyes flared, and for a second he gave serious thought to slamming the door.

Hard.

He only resisted because he knew Dean wouldn't hesitate to get out and kick his ass in front of the other students, not caring that it would utterly embarrass Sam.

He closed it gently and stalked off to the front door, leaving his brother behind to gape at him and wonder what the fuck just happened.

/

The young hunter smiled fondly as he shut the hood of his Jeep. It had only taken an hour to fix this time. Apparently his mother was getting less creative with her machinations as she got older. It was a game they played as the years passed. She vandalized his car in an attempt to keep him home, and he fixed it back up and pretended to blame it on the normal wear and tear of an aging and beloved vehicle.

He had already disappointed her in so many ways, he was okay with letting her have her hissy fits about his frequent trips away from their home.

Striding back into the house, brushing snow from his coat carefully so he didn't get grease on it, he headed towards his office. His go-bag was lying on his desk, always packed and easily accessible. He rummaged around for a minute and grabbed a few more innocuous looking weapons. Since he was going to have to cross the border into the US today, the fewer lethal things he needed to hide in the car, the better.

You never know when border control might get curious.

He paused for a minute, looking over at his cork board, and wondered if he should bring along one of his oldest possessions. Considering what he was about to walk into, he probably was going to need all the evidence he could get. The man he was going to be meeting had a larger than life reputation in their world, and he wasn't someone who was known to take things on faith.

Mind made up, he sorted through the various layers of newspaper articles and photos that had built up over the years until he finally found the slightly fading Polaroid at the very back of the pile. He hadn't looked at it in years, although the subject of the photo was ever present on his mind. Every time he went on the hunt, that face flashed in front of his eyes and only increased his determination that the path he had chosen was righteous.

He couldn't part with it completely.

Regardless of what he was getting ready to do. He flipped on his computer and scanner, and when they were warmed up and ready, he put the photo on the scanning bed and saved a digital copy. He would take the time to print out a duplicate for himself later.

Packing the photo into his bag, he switched off the lights to his office and headed out to the entryway of the house, where his mother was nervously pacing, anticipating his departure. He smiled sweetly at her, hating to cause her distress, but knowing that what he had chosen to do with his life made a real difference. He leaned down and kissed her cheek, letting her hug him tightly for a minute.

It wasn't easy on her.

She had already lost his father, and knowing that every goodbye with her only child might be the last one had aged her prematurely. He wished it could have been different. That he could have obliged her by becoming an astronaut, or a Mountie or a hundred other things that would have made her proud and kept the anxiety from lining her face.

But he was doing this for her.

Her and every other mother that might be in danger of losing a husband or a child to something vile and vicious. There just were not enough hunters in this world. It took a certain kind of person. A certain content of character. You needed to be willing to sacrifice everything, every day, for strangers. Knowing that this life only ended one way, and making your peace with that.

Hopefully, by the end of his time, whenever that was, he could leave knowing that he made the world a better place than it would have been without him. It was because of someone like him that he was still here at all, and when a life altering event like happens, you needed to heed the call and pay it forward.

It was still snowing lightly. The forecast had predicted icy road conditions for almost the entirety of his eight hour journey. But he had faith in his Jeep. It was a trusty car when it wasn't around for his mother to tinker with, and he needed to make this trip. There was someone he needed to pay back, and hopefully what he was doing today would be a start.

/

Contrary to Dean's words this morning, Kristin had not, in fact, been even remotely understanding when Sam told her that he wouldn't be able to take her to Smith's party.

As the day progressed, she was determined to make him change his mind, and by the time he went to his locker to collect everything he would need to take home for the night, his ears were bleeding from her increasingly upset insistence.

Even the offer to take her out on Saturday, anywhere she wanted to go for evening, and Sam more than willing to break into his cash reserves to pay for something extra special, had not smoothed things over. When she refused his goodbye kiss and turned on her heel and stomped away from him, her gaggle of girlfriends shooting him hostile glares, he banged his head against the locker and cursed his family of wardens.

Dean would have been able to go, he knew without a doubt.

Mostly because Dad never really asked where his oldest son spent his evenings away when their father was actually with them. John gave Dean his first fake ID when he was sixteen, allowing him to hustle in places a hell of a lot scarier than the well appointed Greek Revival of the Harris family.

Sam had seen his brother come home bloody and bruised after getting jumped by marks that didn't have a sense of humor about losing their money.

Right about now, Sam was choking on the double standards being shoved down his throat.

If that wasn't more proof that his father thought less of his capabilities than he thought of Dean's, then Sam didn't know what would be. No matter how hard Sam trained, or how many hours he spent tracking down translations and archaic texts to help with hunts, he realized that he would never be the equal of his older brother in their father's eyes.

On one hand, he supposed he should be happy about that fact. If Dad wasn't counting on him to be as much of an asset to the family business, then he probably wouldn't even care that Sam was going to leave and go to college.

Dean was already waiting for him at the curb, and it took everything Sam had in him to climb in the car and keep his mouth closed. Unable to trust himself to be civil with his pig headed older brother, he opted for silence, and after a few attempts by Dean to start a casual conversation, eventually he just left Sam alone.

The hostile undercurrent of Sam's temper didn't improve during their daily sparring session. While Dean had already planned on pushing his little brother into expending some of his pent up frustration in a productive and educational manner, he soon realized that Sam wasn't interested in pulling his punches today. Only the sharper and more instinctual reflexes of the older brother prevented him from getting a broken nose on more than one occasion.

Dad had thrown a mat down in the basement in an empty area off to the side from where his bed and work station sat. South Dakota had too much cold weather to allow for outdoor PT in the winter months. The boys fought and grappled and tumbled on the mat for almost thirty minutes, building up heavy pools of sweat and pushing oxygen deprived aching muscles.

Sam was like a raging bull, but even his will and own impressive skills were not enough to get the drop on his older brother.

After the third time Dean almost found himself eating a fist sandwich, he decided he'd had enough. He pinned Sam to the mat, and finally let his full strength take over. Sam roared and bucked like a rampaging elephant, but his struggles were unproductive. He might be gaining inches on Dean, but Dean was still the big brother in their house and he was just done with the bullshit attitude that had been thrown at him since before the sun rose.

With both of Sam's arms stretched taut behind his back, held in place by one of Dean's hands and a knee, and Dean's other hand pushing the side of Sam's face painfully into the mat, the younger boy finally grunted his concession and tapped out.

Dean was trying. God knows he was. Right now Sam was lucky that his big brother loved him, because what Dean really wanted was to punch Sam in the face until he got over himself and dealt with disappointment.

After Sam's less than sportsman like conduct in the basement, he even let the kid order his favorite pizza for dinner in lieu of eating whatever resulted from his big brother's latest foray in the kitchen. Not that Dean's cooking was terrible. He was getting better every day, but there was definitely a learning curve still going on with their stove at night.

Sam's piss poor attitude didn't actually warrant the right to be allowed out at all, quite frankly and, for a split second, his brother considered grounding his ass and making him stay home for the night until he accepted that being a little bitch didn't get you what you want in life.

Then his blood pressure lowered, giving a chance for his annoyance to ebb away and realize that Sam's irritation over not getting to indulge in some normal teenage mischief was, in some small way, an understandable reaction.

He dropped Sam off at his friend Michael's house, with a reminder that he would return for him at nine, and tried not to be offended when the kid didn't even bother to say goodbye.

/

Harvelle's Roadhouse was just a small beat up little dive. It sat somewhere in the neighborhood of central Bumfuck, Nebraska, far away from the main streets and prying eyes of the world of civilians. You wouldn't even give it a second glance if you were to stumble across it by accident. The weather beaten wood siding and partially boarded up windows screamed Go Away to the casual onlooker.

To the hunting community, it was neutral ground.

A place for exchanging information with others in The Life, without fearing for your own. Run by Ellen Harvelle, widow of the man who built it, there were strict rules in place about what kind of behavior was allowed within the walls. Ellen was tough, and handy with a pistol, and there were many fearless men and women who would rather tangle with a pack of chupacabra than face down the barrel of Mrs. Harvelle's gun.

Inside was significantly more welcoming than the exterior. The hardwood floor was scuffed beyond repair by numerous brawls, when eager beaver novice hunters took it upon themselves to start fights they couldn't finish, but it was still good quality. There was a large wrap around bar with comfortably worn leather stools, and clean taps that poured generous pints of PBR.

Various tables were spread around the main room, with a pool table off to the side. You could hustle in the Roadhouse, if you were of a mind, but if you were expecting to profit from your efforts, you were going to be disappointed. Anyone you chanced to challenge was guaranteed to be better than you. Mostly the games were just for practice. A way for the hunters to hone their skills in fleecing the marks they met during their travels.

You also had to be careful of the proprietress' teenage daughter Jo, who would cheerfully relieve you of your cash if you were foolish enough to challenge her in cards or the aging video games in the corner.

When the young hunter enters, the atmosphere is lively. It's the evening, and the roads are becoming impassable. No one is in any hurry to leave, and the beer is flowing freely. He sits himself at a corner table, back to the wall out of habit, and scans his surroundings.

These hunters are not his usual comrades in arms. Since he generally keeps himself north of the lower forty-eight, he has his own trusted circle of contacts and sources. Hunters tended to keep to their own territories if they could, although they would travel thousands of miles for a case if the situation required it. One can never be too careful in unfamiliar territory.

Especially with this group.

When the front door opens, about ten minutes after his own arrival, it's as if the entire joint freezes up. The lull in conversation is so unnaturally sudden that it startles him, and he finds himself tensing defensively even as he darts his eyes over to the entry to see what has them so on edge.

The man walking in is tall, broad in the shoulders, but lean. The young hunger doubts there is an ounce of fat on him. His face is unreadable, but his dark eyes track every single movement in the entire place. He says nothing. Makes no aggressive movements, but there is a foreboding sense of menace surrounding him. The vibes he is giving off are warning anyone with half a brain cell to steer far clear of his path.

The young hunter doesn't know if it's fear, respect or disdain, but the other bar patrons keep their mouths closed and avert their eyes as the newcomer saunters over to the bar. The entire crowd seems decidedly uncomfortable, and a few even pack up and take off as discretely as they can, weather be damned.

The tall man heads straight for Ellen and, for the briefest of seconds, his face drops its mask of blatant intimidation and softens. They don't speak, but she reaches out and gently presses her hand to the top of the one he has placed on the bar. A few heartbeats pass, and then she is jutting her chin in the direction of the young hunter himself. He finds that he is not surprised that his presence here this evening has been broadcast to the Roadhouse's inner circle.

He's not without his own reputation.

The tall man reaches the young hunters table, stern and projecting a sense of power and strength that exceeds his already impressive form. They spend a minute sizing each other up. These are two men known to face the demon world head on and neither is a shrinking violet. Neither of them is willing to be the first that blinks either, because to do so would be a sign of weakness. Eventually, they come to an unspoken mutual respect. The older man takes a seat across the table and leans back, nodding his head in acknowledgment and unnecessarily introduces himself.

"John Winchester."

The young hunter takes the offered olive branch and goes one step further, extending his hand in greeting.

"Asa Fox."

/

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

When Sam arrives at Michael's house, he joins Michael and two other study buddies in the well appointed family room where books are already spread out in every direction on the large wooden table off to the side. Normally, there are eight of them that routinely gather together to share notes and quiz one another in various subjects. Sam knows, without asking, that the other four are at the party where he himself is longing to be.

Less than twenty minutes into their study session, it is clear that Sam's mind is elsewhere, and his less than helpful participation is becoming a distraction to the others. Realizing that they will not be getting any productive work done this evening, Michael finally suggests that they just give up even trying and head to the party that they all secretly want to attend.

Sam knows he shouldn't. Knows that he has rules to obey, and trust that he should not abuse.

While his father is heavy handed and firm, his brother goes out of his way to fight for Sam to have what he wants when it's truly important. Dean doesn't demand much out of Sam for everything his big brother does for him. All he asks is for Sam to follow the rules and keep out of trouble.

If Dean was the least bit comfortable with Sam being at the Harris home, he would have gone to the mat with their dad to get permission for tonight.

That knowledge alone should stop Sam cold.

But he's been in a heightened state of agitation for a few weeks now, for no real reason other than he has a girlfriend for the first time, and she makes demands on him that he's never had to accommodate before. He wants to accommodate her. Enjoys having her on his arm as they walk through the halls, and drink ridiculously expensive coffees that make them feel sophisticated and mature while hanging out with the popular kids.

Sam's not shallow, but he's also never been popular before either, and it's not a feeling that he is willing to give up just yet by disappointing her.

Michael's parents are out for the evening. They will never even know that the kids are not at their house where they are supposed to be, and Sam has a discomforting thought about how that little fact would make his brother go ape shit crazy if he knew. Michael has his own car, and before Sam knows it, they are all piling in and heading downtown. Michael assures him that they will only stay for an hour or so, and that Sam will be back at the house in plenty of time for Dean to pick him up.

Easy.

The streets are icy, so Michael drives slow and carefully, because he's a responsible kid and a conscientious driver. It takes longer than expected to get to the house, and they can hear the music from two blocks away emanating from it. They have to park a good distance away, because it really does seem that the entire school has decided to swing by.

The interior is utter chaos. It's wall to wall bodies, and there is a lot of intimately close contact as Sam and company attempt to squeeze their way through. He scans each room as they push along, looking for Kristin, but so far doesn't see her anywhere. One of his soccer teammates tries to push a plastic cup of beer in his hand and he politely refuses. All he needs is for Dean to smell alcohol on his breath. The jig would be up pretty quick.

Michael settles in one of the less crowded sitting rooms, along with Taylor and Nathalie, the other two that showed to study group. They have joined some of the other regular members that are already seated, and Taylor makes a space for Sam on the couch, but he smiles and indicates that he is going to keep searching for Kristin farther in.

There is a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke, mixed with the sweet tang of marijuana permeating the air of the house. Sam cringes, realizing that this does not bode well for his ability to keep his brother from detecting them on his clothes. While he would never touch a joint, Dean has once, and has been subjected to the second hand smoke of it on more than one occasion. There's not much chance he won't recognize that particular odor.

It's at that point that he knows he's already busted. There go his Saturday plans with Kristin.

There's a full bar set up in the rec room, and clearly Smith has spared no expense. There are shelves filled with top brands of spirits, and no less than three tapped kegs with huge stacks of plastic cups lined up at the sides. The windows are vibrating with the heavy bass being pumped out of the crystal clear sound system, and the room is filled with a mob of scantily clad teenagers dancing and rubbing against each other in lusty gyrations.

Pushing aside the worrisome knowledge that his brother's wrath is now inescapable, Sam decides that if he's in for a penny, he's in for a pound, and when the next person pumps a cup of beer from the keg and passes it over, he takes it and downs half, already sweating from the heat generated from the sheer number of bodies crowded into the house and a furnace that is apparently working on full bore to ward off the winter chill.

He's still wandering from room to room when his head starts to buzz. Not from the beer, he knows, because occasionally Dean, and even sometimes their dad, will let him have a couple after a successful hunt. Sam can handle his beer just fine. The marijuana smoke is a new entity, and it's not treating him kindly. He doesn't think he's getting high exactly, although he has one killer of a headache building.

He's back in the part of the house where the crowd is thickest and, with his eyes going glassy, starts feeling claustrophobic. He pushes at a door to his side, mistaking it for the one to the rec room in an effort to get back to his friends. When it falls open, he realizes that he has stumbled across a darkened bedroom that is clearly already in use by some enthusiastic attendees from the sounds he hears coming from the bed.

Embarrassed, he begins to mutter an apology and turns to let himself back out, and it's then that he sees who the bed's occupants are.

Kristin is the first to recognize him, and while Sam is standing in shock in the doorway, she struggles to pull the sheets up to cover her bare breasts. Her face is red and she looks like she is about to burst into tears. Next to her, Trenton sits up, unashamed of his own nudity, more than happy to lay there with a sheen of sweat glistening off of his bulging muscles. There's a cruel smirk on his face and his eyes dare Sam to do or say something about what he's just stumbled across.

For a second, Sam allows himself to feel the pain of hurt and betrayal, before schooling his features to the scary neutral mask that he has inherited from his father. With a malicious sneer, he moves to close the door, throwing the couple one last parting shot.

"Don't let me interrupt."

He shuts the door behind him and heads back to the bar.

If he stops and thinks for a second, he will have to deal with the fact that his ego is crushed and his heart is potentially breaking. Not because he's necessarily in love with Kristin, but because for years he has been in love with the idea of her. Those lonely high school years before his time at Holy Rosary, when all he wanted was to be a normal kid, with a pretty girlfriend and comfortable place in the social hierarchy.

That's pretty much gone right now, and he's one part distressed and four parts enraged. No longer thinking clearly, he goes to the bar and snags two bottles of Jack. He's not stopped. There is no one behind the bar to tend it and the booze is veritably a free-for-all.

Michael and the girls stare at the craziness in his eyes when he reaches them again. He's already swigging directly from the neck of one of the bottles. He's had Jack before. His own father has given it to him to dull the pain of injuries.

And he is definitely in pain right now. Who says the pain has to be physical to earn him the right to some liquor? Dad has no trouble using an alcoholic crutch to deal with his hurt, after all.

Michael stands up and approaches him, as one would an injured lion that you don't want to spook.

"Sam, are you okay, man?"

"Fan-fucking-tastic," Sam replies cheerfully, as he takes another pull. He offers the bottle to Michael, but it's refused.

"Did you find Kristin?"

Michael is trying to ferret out the reason why Sam has gone on a quick bender, and realizes his mistake as soon as a flash of hurt flickers in Sam's eyes. It's gone an instant later, and the cruel hardness returns, changing Sam into someone that Michael doesn't know, and it's more than a little scary.

Sam smiles, but it's a cold smile, and Michael feels an involuntary shudder pass through him.

"Oh, yeah," he says, almost conversationally. "She's in one of the bedrooms fucking Trenton. Drink?"

That news has Michael blinking fast, and he realizes that he needs to get his friend away from this place. He refuses the offer of the Jack and quietly suggests that they just leave. Taylor and Nathalie have also been drinking, against his advice, and he would really prefer that they all just go home before something else bad happens.

When Michael gently pries the unopened bottle from Sam's hand, he hears Sam pull in a stuttering breath, as if he is close to breaking into tears. Sam doesn't fight him when Michael collects their coats and begins to steer Sam and the girls out to the car.

The snow is falling heavier at this point, and it's a precarious walk down the sidewalk. Their footsteps are muffled by the flakes already covering the ground, and the only sound is the occasional swallow that Sam takes from the bottle he still has. Michael doesn't fight him for that one, and is almost semi-relieved when the girls begin to share it. Taking small sips and dumping some out when Sam isn't looking.

It takes some time, but eventually they make it to the car and pile in. Sam folds himself into the back with Nathalie, while Taylor takes the front passenger seat. Michael asks him to cap the bottle, and Sam still has the decency to do as his friend asks.

Sam's head is spinning and he's desperately fighting back tears of frustration and hurt, while a knot of anger and betrayal begin to burn in the pit of his stomach. He ignores the others in the car, not paying any attention to the worried glances Michael keeps sneaking at him in the rear view mirror.

He barely even realizes what is happening when the car hits a patch of black ice and careens into a pole.

/

Dean has a smile on his face a mile wide as he puts the finishing touches on Sammy's Camaro. With any luck, she will be done tonight, although he's not in any hurry to rush it. He's taken his time with this one, wanting nothing but the best for his kid brother.

Sam has no idea how many times their father has swung by during the last month to help Dean rebuild her. John has even stayed with Bobby a few nights, because they know Sam will be suspicious to have Dad at home with that kind of frequency without a plausible explanation. Dean has loved every minute of the time spent with his Dad, shoulder to shoulder as they work.

Even with John's habitual sharp criticisms and rebukes over less than stellar technique it doesn't dampen the joy Dean finds from learning at his father's side.

They have poured their hearts and souls into creating something beautiful for their youngest, and Dean is almost sorry now that he agreed with his father to wait until Christmas to hand the keys over to Sam.

Maybe with something fun in his life right now, little brother can stop being such an asshole.

Dean's no stranger to Sam's surly attitude and constantly fluctuating moods. It's Dad all over again.

Live and in technicolor in his lookalike son.

Of course, Dean didn't experience John as a teenager, but he suspects that his father was just as mercurial and short tempered as his little brother has been lately. Fortunately, Dean is all too well versed in handling a moody dark haired Winchester, and he knows that he will be employing some tried and true methods of keeping Sam's emotional turbulence in a manageable range.

The interior of the garage is warm from the three space heaters that Bobby has placed strategically around the car. Dean needs dry heat for the work he's doing tonight, but he's starting to sweat a little. He straightens from where he has been hunched at the rear bumper and stretches, pulling a knot from the tight muscles in his back after their exceptionally aggressive workout earlier.

He looks out one of the garage windows and sees the snowy conditions and gives thought to the brilliance of letting Sam have a car right in the middle of winter. The kid can drive, but neither Dad nor Dean have ever really let him take the wheel in bad weather. Dean sees a few weeks of practice driving, with himself firmly in the passenger seat to navigate and instruct, in Sam's near future.

He works for a while longer, until it's time to leave to pick Sam up from his friend's house. With the snowy roads in mind, he decides to give himself a head start. He doesn't mind sitting outside and waiting for a while until the kid is ready to come home. Lord knows, the less he has to talk with his bitchy brother tonight, the better.

Hopefully Sam will wake up on the right side of the bed tomorrow morning.

Gliding the car smoothly through light traffic, he arrives at Michael's house a few minutes early. He shuts the car off and settles in to wait. The interior is still warm and he's comfortable. If it begins to cool off, he could always turn her back on, but Dean's not delicate like that. He can take a little chill for a while.

He throws AC/DC in the cassette slot and turns the key to auxiliary. The strains of Highway to Hell filter through the speakers and he leans back in his seat, closing his eyes and relaxing. It's been a really long day and he's tired. All he wants is to get Sammy home, have a beer and a hot shower, and hit the rack.

Comfortable, he drifts, falling into a light sleep without realizing it. It's a dreamless REM cycle, and when something finally breaches his unconsciousness and he surfaces, it takes a second to get his bearings. The car is far colder than it should be after just a brief time sitting, and in the tape deck the sound of side B's Love Hungry Man is just finishing up. With a start he realizes how much time has passed, and that Sammy has not woken him with the sound of the passenger door opening.

He blinks rapidly, reflexive and offensive instincts kicking, until he hears the familiar opening bars of Smoke on the Water vibrating in his coat pocket. He digs for his phone and snaps it open, relieved when the caller ID shows Sammy's name. He pushes the talk button, ready to snap at his little brother for being so late.

"Sammy, where the hell are you, man? I want to get home."

"Dean. I'm in trouble."

/

Sam's mind is black for a while. The first conscious sensation he feels is a dull, thudding pain above his right eye. As he struggles for coherent thought, a warm sluggish trickle of liquid snakes its way into the corner of his eye and he lifts his hand to push it out of his vision.

It takes a few seconds to realize where he is, and it's only because he can hear Taylor crying softly in the seat in front of him that he finally understands that they have been involved in an accident. His father's training kicks in without hesitation, and he immediately starts an assessment of his own physical condition so that he can assist the others.

Other than an ache in his head, which he is fairly sure is a mild concussion, and beginnings of the bruises he can feel from the impact, he seems to be unhurt. Next to him, Nathalie is still unconscious, her face hanging down to her chest. Sam can see a smear of blood on the window next to her. Michael is hunched over the steering wheel's airbag, but he is groaning softly and Sam feels a wave of relief that his friend is still breathing.

His mind is still muddled from the Jack and the marijuana contact high, but response to trauma is ingrained into his very DNA after years in the Winchester Army. He looks around for landmarks, finds a familiar intersection and grabs his phone. He dials 911, and proceeds to give a very calm explanation of what has happened and what their approximate location is before hanging up. The dispatcher had wanted to keep him on the line, but Sam knows he needs the freedom to triage his friends' injuries, and he can't do that with a phone in one hand.

Releasing himself from his own seat belt, he checks Nathalie for a pulse and finds one strong and steady. There is a sticky clump of blood clotting on the left side of her temple, but otherwise she seems unharmed. He pulls the clean handkerchief that Dean insists he always carry on him, and uses it to staunch the flow of blood.

Needing to see to the others, Sam gets out of the car and runs around to the front, doing what he can to assist Michael first, and then runs around to the other side to help Taylor. In the distance, he can hear the wail of sirens, and he takes a moment to wipe away another stream off blood from his own face that hasn't slowed down.

Help is on the way, and the adrenaline spike that has kept Sam on his feet and moving suddenly plummets. He sways a little and barely manages to drop back into his own seat before the ambulance and police cruiser come screeching to a halt next to them.

/

The minute Sam saw his brother stride into the emergency room, he felt a strange and immediate mixture of relief and fear.

Relief that his big brother would help him out of whatever mess he had gotten himself into, and fear that once he did, Dean might just decide that it was more fun to kill him himself. His brother makes his way over to him quickly, worry oozing out of every pore as he gives Sam a thorough once over to make sure that the kid was in one piece.

"Are you okay, Sammy?"

Dean's voice was calm, controlled. Low volume that belied his panic over his little brother being injured. He reaches out and cups Sam's face in his hands, tilting his little brother's head slightly so he can examine the wound on his forehead. It's nothing serious.

Sam nods jerkily, unable to find his voice, his state of anxiety still running high over the uncertainty of what was going to happen to him. The surge of adrenaline that has been pumping hard through his veins since the car's impact has returned over the uncertainty of exactly how much trouble he is in.

Dean stared at him for a moment, as if trying to reassure himself that Sam's non-verbal response was not an indication of a more serious problem than the one at hand. He whips out his own penlight, checking Sam's pupils, and comforts himself that they show no indication of a concussion. While Sam has a bandage above his eye, the injury seems superficial.

He reached out to give the trembling teen a quick comforting pat on the shoulder before straightening back up and heading over to where Taylor's father is gathered with the two responding police officers.

If Sam was feeling comforted by his brother's presence, it's short lived. During the conversation with the officers, Dean's face has gone strangely red, a lot like their father's did when he was furious. Sam doesn't need to hear the conversation to know what his brother was being told.

Taylor's father was the first to arrive at the ER, since his daughter was coherent enough to call him from the ambulance. A locally well known attorney, he took immediate control of the situation, once he was assured that his daughter was okay. At the hospital, he is given the run down by the responding officers, and it immediately kicks his personal and professional interest into high gear.

All the kids are fine. Banged up and bruised, but fine. Nathalie has a mild concussion, and will need overnight observation, but the rest are okay to go home. It's a no-fault accident, given the road conditions and no evidence that Michael was speeding.

The smell of whiskey in the car, and the half empty bottle rolling around in the foot well of the rear seat is enough cause to give all four kids a breathalyzer. The driver is the only one who hasn't been drinking, luckily for him. All the others blow levels over the legal limit for adults which, clearly, they are not.

Technically, all three passengers are under arrest for underage drinking. Taylor's father manages to convince the officers to release them into the custody of their parents. His friend is the D.A., and there is a conference call placed right at the nurses station to keep the whole thing as casual and friendly as possible.

Dean darts quickly back to the car for a second and retrieves a copy of the guardianship papers he keeps in the glove box for emergency purposes. He's thankful at that moment for his father's drilled in insistence of always being prepared.

When he rejoins the conversation, Taylor's father informs him that he has come to a gentleman's agreement with the DA. If the kids and their parents appear in court next week and pay a fine, the misdemeanor underage drinking charge will be dropped to a citation offense of disorderly conduct. One that will go away in ninety days.

An incredibly fair offer under the circumstances, and only under consideration because of the lack of injuries and property damage.

Sam sat fidgeting in his seat, watching his brother grow increasingly more red in the face until Dean turned towards him and shot him such a heated glare that Sam was sure they would not need accelerant for their next salt and burn. His brother's rage would be more than enough fuel to get the job done.

For his part, Dean was having trouble believing what he was hearing. Sam was just not the kind of kid that got himself into trouble like this. He had always been the goody-good little bookworm that stayed at home and studied, keeping his head down and not causing waves, unless it was to mouth off to their father.

For some reason, his little brother had always had a talent for that. But otherwise, Sam never behaved this way, and Dean was not thrilled with the new personality.

He wasn't quite sure what to make of the kid finding a carelessly rebellious streak this late in the game of his teen years. With a small pang of discomfort in his stomach, he had to wonder if it was because their father wasn't around as much to keep him in check.

Sure, Sam could go thirteen rounds in vocal battles with John before crossing the line that ended up getting his ass handed to him, but he was never actually foolish enough to set out and cause trouble that would get them noticed. Sam was certainly smart enough to know just how much wrath would be rained down upon him if he had.

Glancing over at the kid, Dean could see that Sam was practically to the point of hyperventilation. Sighing deeply in frustration, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand. There would be plenty of time to rip Sammy a new one on the way home.

His kid brother is okay. He'd probably have a monster hangover in the morning, along with an additional layer of headache from the bump above his eye, but he was otherwise okay. That was the important thing.

Dean shakes Taylor's father's hand, genuinely appreciative of all the man has done to keep Sam out of real trouble. The gratitude is returned, and the relieved father details how Dean's little brother was the one responsible for getting them medical attention so quickly and caring for them until the cavalry arrived.

Through all of this, Sam has not uttered a sound, even when his brother grabs him, none too gently, under the arm and yanks him to his feet. He grasps Sam's bicep with a vice-like grip and drags him out the door and into the car.

The first few minutes of the drive back to the house are tense. Dean is too angry to speak coherently and Sam just doesn't know how to explain what he did to his brother. He is crushed with guilt over acting so recklessly and thoughtlessly, never mind the overwhelming embarrassment of having to admit that it was all over a girl. Dean wouldn't understand that kind of awkward behavior. He has been attracting the fairer sex like bees to honey Sam's entire life.

In the car with his brother, Sam keeps his head down, waiting for the inevitable storm to be unleashed. His temper put his friends in danger as they tried to help him, he's embarrassed by the knowledge that everyone at school tomorrow is going to hear how his girlfriend got caught banging her ex, he has disobeyed his father's rules and pissed off his big brother.

Yeah, there have been better days in his life.

He doesn't have to wait long for the explosion. Before they are even over town lines, Dean slams his hands on the steering wheel, his quest for patience at an end.

"What the hell, Sam!"

Dean's hands are stinging where he hit them on the Impala's steering wheel. He hadn't meant to lose his cool like that, but god damn it! What is going on in that head of his brother's? He swears that the kid is just clueless.

"Do you even know what could have happened to you tonight?"

His voice is hard and raspy. It's not really a question, more like an accusation. He looks over and sees Sam's face blush an even deeper red than it has already been and the sight of this tempers his anger a little.

Dean reaches up with his right hand and rubs his face tiredly. He doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to play bad cop. He knows his brother well enough to see how upset Sam is and reminds himself that it's the kid's first time in real trouble.

Sam is determinedly staring straight ahead and Dean knows his brother's moods well enough to know that the kid is struggling to keep it together. He reminds himself again that Sam is unhurt, that the accident could have been so much worse and, as much as he doesn't like it, this will all be over as soon as the two-fifty in court fines is paid. He has the money set aside. It might make for a leaner Christmas than he wanted to have, but that's okay.

He can't delude himself into thinking that they can keep this away from their father. Dean would never dream of doing such a thing. Sam is John's son and he has every right to know what has happened tonight. It's not going to be a pleasant conversation, he knows. Their father is going to tear into Dean up one side and back down the other for being foolish enough to let his kid brother pull one over on him.

The unpleasant reality of this fact stings him, re-igniting his earlier anger over his brother's intentional duplicity in breaking the rules. Dean has stuck his neck out to allow Sam a little more freedom than he should have had, and this is how the little brat repays him.

"What were you thinking, Sam?" he demands, the irritation that he has been forcing himself to repress for the past hour edging its way out of him in full force. "I trusted you to be where you told me you would be."

In truth, Sam doesn't know how to answer that question. What was he thinking? He's never been the kind of person to act recklessly like that. Has always been the one to reprove his big brother when Dean took unnecessary risks to his own safety.

Not only that, but he has really abused his friendship with Michael, who was hurt and now has a wrecked car because he was trying to make Sam happy. Michael and his parents have been really nice to Sam. Now he doesn't know if the friendship is even salvageable, and that thought pains him.

"I'm waiting for an answer here, kiddo," Dean scolds in a voice that sounds suspiciously close to their father's tone and Sam can feel himself bristle from it out of sheer habit.

He finds himself forgetting that the person on the other end of this stunted conversation is the brother that has always given a hundred and ten percent of himself, and not the constantly absent father that Sam can't stop himself from treating with hostility because it's easier than admitting how much he misses him when he's gone.

Sam huffs in annoyance, reminds himself of all of the trouble that his brother got into during his teen years and can't repress the hurt feelings that his brother is being a hypocrite.

"You've done worse," he mutters, mentally deluding himself into thinking that his words are not loud enough to be heard.

Dean's hearing, however, is just fine and he has no trouble either in picking up the words or the underlining petulance behind them. He is more than a little perturbed by the nerve of his little brother attempting to throw Dean's teen mischief in his face at a time like this.

Dean may not have been an angel, but his exploits were few and far between, and most of his youthful indiscretions were either to work the job or keep his brother fed and housed. When he was Sam's age, Dean had much healthier fears of John's temper and his belt, both of which were overpowered by Dean's almost paralyzing fear of his father's disappointment. Topping that off with his blind devotion to his little brother's safety and well being and it didn't make for much opportunity to run amok.

"I never said I was perfect, Sammy," he warned in a low growl as he fought to keep calm, "but this...I don't know what this was. I trusted you. And you just did what you wanted to anyway, without giving a shit."

Sam bit down on the inside of his cheek at the reprimand. He knew that he had broken faith with his brother. That Dean had every right to tear a few strips off of him for doing so. He's crippled with the guilt of knowing just how hard Dean has worked to give him everything they have right now, and it's all he can do to keep the flood of embarrassing tears threatening behind his eyes at bay.

Sam's refusal to speak any further is grating on Dean's last nerve and he is thisclose to completely losing it. His ass is on the line now with their father too, and he is not real happy about it. He grits his teeth in frustration knowing that he is going to do what he always does, and that is whatever it takes to minimize the fallout for his little brother.

He's run interference for Sammy the kid's entire life, and he is not about to stop now, especially since Dean is not a child anymore and there is little that John can actually do to him outside the blistering reprimand that is surely in his future.

He runs his hand through his cropped hair and lets out a deep cleansing sigh before throwing the kid another glare. Sam is still determinedly keeping his jaw set, but Dean knows that the kid is probably drowning inside.

"You don't want to talk about it, fine. We'll get this all straightened out," he finally says, hoping that the words bring more comfort than they sound.

"But this is the last time something like this happens, Sam," he warns firmly. "If I can't trust you, you're grounded until you get your head out of your ass. Maybe in a couple of weeks you can have your friends come over to study if Dad says it's okay, but you aren't leaving the house."

These words slam into Sam like a tidal wave and he turns a furious stare over onto his brother. It's part vicious pang that Michael and the others may not even want to hang out with him anymore and part annoyance at Dean treating him like a child and putting him on lock down like Dad does. He forgets his own actions of the evening and burns in a rage.

"You have no right to do that, Dean," he hisses, as his temper flares. "You're not Dad, you know."

Dean's annoyance trumps Sam's. The kid just does not know when to quit while he's ahead. Dean knows that if he can persuade John that he has already handled the situation, there is a slim chance that his father won't murder his brother for his little venture in juvenile delinquency, and he is trying to do him a kindness here. He brings the car to a complete stop in the empty road and puts her in park.

"You're right, Sammy," he seethes, his teeth clenched. "If I was Dad? You'd be bent over the hood of the car right now getting your ass whipped."

Dean holds Sam's stare until the boy finally turns away. His little brother knows that what he just said is entirely true. John has exactly zero patience for this kind of defiance and he has never hesitated to demonstrate it to either of his sons.

After Dean starts driving again, the rest of the trip home is completely silent. Dean finds himself wondering how long it's going to take for all of this to blow over and whether or not it will before he gives his little brother a serious beat down.

When they get back to the house, it is already late in the evening. Both of them are tired, cold and weary. Sam shuffles into the living room, carelessly tossing his backpack on the couch as he waits for his brother to come in behind him. He's already regretting the attitude that he gave Dean in the car and wants to clear the air a little.

It's just like it is with his father. Sam knows that he royally messed up this evening, but he just finds himself getting so angry at being treated like a child all the time by his father and brother that he lashes out. Mostly, it is John who bears the brunt of his angst. Sam is usually so wrapped up in being mad at his father that Dean is forever trying to make him feel better, and Sam is ashamed of the way he has spoken to his brother tonight.

Dean stomps in behind him, his jaw still clenched and Sam winces slightly. He opens his mouth to break the ice, but his brother beats him to the punch.

"You heard what I said, Sam," he snaps, holding his hand up to prevent more conversation. "Go to your room and get to bed. It's late and you have school in the morning."

Dean had not meant to sound unkind or like he was issuing an order. He was just drop dead exhausted, bleeding tension and truthfully tired of his little brother's crap. Just wanting this whole night to be over already, and the words come out a bit more harsh than he had intended.

Unfortunately, Sam does not know this and his own roller coaster of emotions starts spinning wildly again.

"Screw you, Dean," he spits out, hurt. "Stop trying to tell me what to do!"

Sam had turned around and was holding a firm offensive stance, staring down his brother, and Dean was more than a little taken aback by his reaction. His mouth is frozen open, like a fish sucking for water, wondering again what the hell just happened to set off Sam's unpredictable temper

Sam mistakes the incredulous look on his brother's face for condescension, and every teenage hackle in his body gets raised in fury. His voice is practically dripping in venom and Dean gets his first taste of the dark streak in his little brother that will wreak havoc upon them as adults years later.

"You just love the fact that you now have legal authority over me," Sam spits out, with a malicious glint blazing in his eyes, and the words come out with a bitterness that has clearly been building over time.

"No matter how much you want to be, Dean, you are not Dad!" Sam growls, his face ablaze. "You're just his obedient little soldier, so stop pretending that you are my father, and stop telling me how to live my life!"

That line of vicious assault is apparently not enough in Sam's blurred mind to get his point across and, without sobriety to filter the shit from his mouth, he takes his assault one step further.

"You're only cool with letting my friends come here because you're just jealous you don't have any of your own and want mine. Why don't you stop sticking yourself in my social life and get one for yourself. Or are you really so pathetic that you can't manage it?"

When the words are out of Sam's mouth, he immediately feels sick. It was as if someone else had taken over his body and spoken vile, unforgivable things, leaving him powerless to stop it. But he knows that it's not true. He's himself and he alone is responsible for putting that devastated look on his adored big brother's face.

Dean's face has gone almost completely white and the poison that has spilled from his kid brother's mouth has hit him harder than a kick to the gut. The critically low level of self esteem that he possesses has taken a mortal hit, and he is finding it hard to breathe. He feels himself drowning in the memory of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of his father's anger and disapproving looks after the Shtriga and Flagstaff fiascoes, Sammy looking uncomfortably similar to a young John Winchester.

Sam wants to say something, anything, to convince his brother how sorry he is, for everything that has gone on this terrible evening but, like a large cosmic joke, words spectacularly fail the boy that can always find something to say. He can't manage to do anything other than stare at the havoc of his brother's slumped posture as he struggles to catch a breath.

Dean has allowed himself several seconds of pain before he follows form and pushes it deep down inside.

He can't even look at his brother right now and, to prove it, he stomps up the stairs to his own room and slams the door shut with such force that the ancient window panes in the kitchen rattle. Sam watches him storm out, his heart dropping into his stomach, and when the door slams with such violent finality, he sinks to the couch and buries his face in his hands as he tries to breath.

/

If there was ever a time in his life to bury himself in the bottom of a bottle, it would be right now.

He doesn't know what kind of look he had on his face that must have prompted Ellen to take pity on him enough to let him crash in the bunkhouse out back. After hearing everything that Fox had to say, John's entire world had been rocked to its very foundation, and he wasn't sure that the walls that tumbled down could ever be rebuilt.

He sits on the edge of the narrow single bed with the undeniable photographic proof dangling from uncertain fingers.

There were no doubts that this was his Mary.

It is her long, blonde tresses, carelessly tied back and draped over her shoulder as she was sliding into the car.

Her car.

Her Camaro.

The one that she would take on mysterious trips. Trips she would tell him nothing about, but had always seemed to have such a profound affect on her.

Trips that sometimes left her bruised and scarred, but also managed to lift a small burden from her shoulders.

After all of these years in The Life, and considering himself a meticulously observant man, John couldn't help wondering why the thought had never occurred to him before.

Maybe some smart part of him did suspect. Maybe it was this same part that didn't allow the suspicion to fully surface, unwilling to interfere with John's fervent quest to bring her murderer to justice.

And maybe that same part knew that John might take a pause if he even semi-considered the idea that it was the hunting past of his wife that had brought all of the resulting tragedy down on their family in the first place.

Although, to be fair, even John had to admit that it was unlikely to have altered his course. He had meant it when he told Mary that he didn't care what she had in her past. She could have come out and just been honest with him, and he still would have loved her.

Married her and made babies with her, because he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was the love of his life, and that devotion didn't come with exceptions.

When the demon in Minneapolis had insinuated that she had been the one responsible for that terrible night in the nursery, John dismissed it as the deception of hell spawn. They were gifted artists in creating hurtful artifice when it suited their purposes.

It was only when Singer had contacted him with a story that was so incredible it couldn't possibly be true that he had given it a second thought.

Truthfully, he would have laughed the entire concept away if it hadn't been for that Polaroid. You can fake a lot of photographs, but this one was simply too old and too well worn to discount. He wouldn't admit it, but he had a grudging admiration for Fox.

He had heard of him, from time to time, from other hunters in their community. If he was honest with himself, there was a slight undercurrent of understanding and pride at the thought that Mary had not only saved this young man's life, but by doing so, was also directly responsible for the lives of everyone that Fox himself had saved over the years.

It was a heady thought.

Not that it quelled the anger that was burning inside of him over the havoc it had wrought on his own children.

Ever since John had picked up his first gun and gone out into the world of supernatural evil, he had told his boys that it was their job to save other people. Innocents who didn't have their knowledge and could not protect themselves from what goes bump in the night.

He stood by that now, but he also knew that there was a part of him that would never truly forgive his love for setting himself and their boys on this path from which there was no return to a civilian life. His children had deserved better. They should have had their chance at a happy home life where they didn't need to fear the things in the dark.

It was simply too late for that now, but John found himself needing to start balancing out the uneven side of the scale. Dean had been right to settle himself and Sam down for a while. Their road was still stretched out in front of them, but they could take a breath.

For a little while, anyway.

Born to this life, whether they knew it or not, he owed it to his kids to start making it up to them.

/

The tension in the air the next morning is palpable, and Sam is afraid to do or say anything that might aggravate the situation. He desperately wants to apologize, knowing that such emotional overtures make his brother uncomfortable, the task Herculean in size given the measure of the offense.

He is hurt, but honestly not surprised, that Dean has not woken him up this morning with his usual hearty bang on the door and the cheery "Rise and shine, Sammy," that usually makes him groan and smile just a little bit. There is no wake up call this morning, despite the fact that it is well past the time that he and Dean should be taking their morning five mile run.

Normally, Sam would whoop with joy over being excused from the early workout that he despises, but today it just emphasizes the gulf between his brother and himself.

Although he can hear Dean going about his morning routine, there is a disquieting absence of the goofy noises he usually makes. Since they were little, Dean is far too chipper after his first cup of coffee in the morning for Sam's taste. Sam has not really slept at all during the night, and he is weary but wide awake when he hesitantly slinks down the stairs to the kitchen.

Things are off there too, and Sam feels an additional stab of guilt from their conversation the previous morning. Every day of Sam's life, Dean will set a place for his brother at the table, putting out the cereal box or fruit, or muffins. Whatever Sam has been of a mind to eat lately.

This morning, as Sam spots the empty table, a sharp pain of hurt bursts in his chest and he sadly reminds himself that he has demanded that his brother stop treating him like a kid. So, be careful what you wish for, kiddo, because big boys can get their own damn cereal.

Dean is standing at the counter with his back to Sam as he drinks one of several cups of morning coffee. He says nothing as Sam pads slowly over to the cabinet and pulls out the container of granola, trying to catch a surreptitious glance at his brother's face. He wants so badly to talk to him.

"Dean?" he tries, his voice small and hesitant.

His brother doesn't even look at him, so Sam has no idea how much it hurts Dean to hear the sad little tone in his brother's voice. All Sam sees is his brother flinching slightly, right before he dumps the rest of his coffee in the sink and head towards the front door.

"I'm leaving in five minutes, if you still want a ride to school." Dean growls, without turning around.

Sam sucks in a harsh gasp of air at the rebuff and he replaces the granola in the cabinet, any trace of appetite he might have possessed vanishing. Sullenly, he goes into the living room, hoists his backpack on his shoulder and heads out to the car to face the hostile atmosphere of the long drive.

Sam can't seem to summon the courage for another attempt at communication. Taking the coward's way out, he convinces himself that it would just be better to wait until after school to try to apologize. Dean enjoys the work he does at Bobby's and has, on more than one occasion, taken the opportunity to work out anger and frustration on the cars there.

When Dean pulls up to the drop off curb, Sam turns to his brother, wanting no more than to just give him a little smile, a poor but genuine stab at smoothing things over, but Dean is staring straight ahead, his jaw firmly set and unyielding.

"I'll be back at five," Dean says, his tone empty and void of any emotion, and the smile on Sam's face slips completely as he gathers his things.

"Okay. Thanks for the ride."

The words are hard for Sam to get out, his voice weak and trembling. With a heavy heart he slides out of the squeaky heavy door. He barely has the time to close it before Dean guns the engine and tears away at a speed that is much too fast for a school zone. Sam sadly watches him go before trudging towards the door, not looking forward to more fallout from the previous night's events.

/

As Dean speeds away from the school, his head throbs menacingly. He didn't sleep at all during the night, unable to breathe properly from the pain he is feeling. It has always been his way. Since he was a little boy charged with the responsibility of caring for Sam, he has sworn to never let his little brother see him weak.

He has hidden a multitude of hurts and injuries from Sam over the years, physical and mental. He is finding it hard to accept that the overwhelming ache that is smothering him right now has been caused by the person he least expected it from.

From the moment he carried Sam out of the burning house, he has dedicated his life to caring for the boy. It was just an instinct ingrained into his every conscious and subconscious thought. If he is honest with himself, he will admit that part of the job is to be overbearing at times out of necessity. Sam is infuriatingly stubborn by nature, and has truly inherited their father's determination to always do things his own way, regardless of who gets stepped on this process.

He hears Sam's accusations reverberating in his mind."You're not Dad, you know." Dean laughs humorlessly to himself.

Yeah, that's right, Sammy. If I was Dad, your little ass would still be sitting in the emergency room, waiting for someone else to come and take care of you because Dad's deep in a hunt and can't be reached.

He slams his hand on the wheel again in frustration and presses harder on the accelerator, making it to Bobby's in record time. Last night, lying sleeplessly on his bed, he had decided on a course of action and he only has until five to set everything in motion.

/

School is just as difficult as Sam expected it to be.

The school is small and everyone has already heard all of the gossip regarding Kristin's betrayal. Kristin herself is apparently too cowardly to appear today. Trenton is strutting around the cock of the walk, and some of the football players are throwing snide glares in Sam's direction. It's never really sat well with some of them that the new kid managed to score one of the girls the team thinks of as their own.

Neither of the other three involved in the accident have made it in today either, and that's okay because Sam doesn't think he could bear seeing their disapproving faces in the wake of his own troubles with his brother. He spends the day in a distracted haze, game face on to those that are looking to see how he's handling his social fall from grace.

These kids don't really know Sam Winchester. Have no idea that he has been trained from infancy to keep his emotions close to his vest.

When the last bell of the day finally rings, Sam practically jumps out of his chair and makes a beeline for the parking lot. He is relieved to see the Impala making the turn to pull in, and releases a breath he doesn't realize he has been holding. He sprints to their usual meeting place, the familiar growling idle of the muscle car bringing a smile to his face. As he opens the passenger door, he vows to do whatever he can to make things right with his brother.

Without paying attention he slides into the leather bench seat, startled when his hip brushes against something. Looking down to his side, he is momentarily confused to see his go-bag bag resting between him and Dean. He knows that their father has already said they wouldn't be meeting up this weekend, and he's wondering if something has happened.

He looks up at Dean and his brother shoots him a quick glance before returning his stare to the windshield. Confused, he watches his brother take a deep breath before putting the car in gear and pulling out of the lot.

"I talked to Dad this morning," Dean states without any preamble. "He's coming here Tuesday afternoon to go to court with you."

The statement, and the coldness in which it is delivered, stuns Sam. He doesn't know how to respond and, as it turns out, Dean is not waiting for him to do so.

"He's passing a hunt to Caleb after I get there to assist him."

Sam's eyes flare in disbelief. As far as Sam knows, Dad has been holed up with Caleb in Des Moines for the past four days trying to locate the body of a murdered girl that goes on a killing spree every year during this week, and John never leaves a job unfinished. Even more disconcerting is the idea that John would allow Dean to take his place. Dean is rarely allowed to go on a hunt by himself with someone other than their father.

"You're staying with Bobby until he gets here." Dean tells him, still determinedly looking away. "I don't know when I'll be back."

So that's it then.

Dean is now truly following in their father's footsteps. He's off on a hunt, and leaving Sam behind indefinitely. The day that Sam has always feared would come is finally here and it feels like a kick to the head. As much as their father's absence has always hurt, angered and occasionally terrified Sam, there was always the comfort of his big brother's steadfast presence to keep him feeling secure.

Sam doesn't care to remember that he had been planning on ditching his brother back during the summer when all he could think about was his own future, and how traveling with Dean and Dad was going to interfere with that.

Be careful what you wish for, kiddo.

"You're right, Sam," Dean mutters quietly, briefly glancing at his little brother. "I'm not Dad."

_No. You're not_. Sam wants to scream. _You're a better father than he is_.

Dean's face is unreadable as he mechanically drives the familiar route to the salvage yard. Sam almost doesn't hear him when he speaks again.

"Maybe it's time I look for my own life, just like you said."

It's a devastating blow to Sam's heart. He chokes on the lump in his throat, swallowing quickly while a wave of bile threatens to gag him.

"Dean, I didn't mean that," he pleads, begging with his eyes for his brother to believe him. "I'm so sorry."

Dean just shakes his head, never looking in his brother's direction.

"Don't, Sam. Just. Don't."

Not able to bear his brother's pain, Sam chews on his bottom lip until it bleeds, desperate to take back the entirety of the last twenty-four hours. He can't beg for forgiveness again, because he simply doesn't deserve it.

The rest of the ride to salvage yard is silent, both boys lost in their own dark thoughts. When Dean pulls up to Bobby's house, they sit in the driveway for a minute, neither one of them knowing what to say. Dean keeps his stare straight ahead, knowing that if he turns and lets himself see the puppy dog eyes that Sam is surely sending over to him, his resolve will waiver and he won't be able to resist the urge to back down.

Another minute of uncomfortable silence and Dean can't take it anymore.

"I have to get going. Dad's waiting on me."

Sam's eyes are tearing over, but his brother isn't looking at him, refuses to acknowledge him. Swallowing hard, he tries again to make amends before it is too late and Dean is gone.

"Dean...please.."

The mournful tone in his little brother's voice and the slight hitch in his throat almost undoes Dean completely and it takes every ounce of strength he has in him to stop himself from pulling the kid into a hug. He reminds himself that Sam has made his choice, defined his line in the sand. When the chips are really down, he just sees Dean as their father's puppet, nothing more. For years Dean has been deluding himself into thinking that they are closer than this and, as much as it hurts to admit, he has been wrong.

"Goodbye, Sam."

And that is the final nail in Sam's coffin. He hears his brother's flat voice and knows that he has destroyed their relationship. He's not Sammy anymore, he's Sam now. All of his life he has taken everything from Dean and finally his big brother has nothing left to give.

And why should he, after what Sam has said to him?

He grabs his bags from the seat and slowly exits the car, closing the door, hesitant to release the handle because he knows that when he does, his brother will be gone and there is no telling when he'll be back.

Dean doesn't wait for him though. He guns the engine and Sam has to jump back to avoid getting pelted with the gravel that the extra wide tires kick up as the Impala roars out of the salvage yard and back down the drive. Sam watches the car vanish, feeling dead inside and unable to move. He stands there motionless for several minutes until Bobby finally comes out to collect him.

/

Dad doesn't actually have a hunt in Des Moines.

In truth, Dean doesn't know where their father is, and when he does reach John in the morning, the man doesn't offer the information. All Dean knows is that he agrees to meet his son at Caleb's in Lincoln in the evening.

Dean has given his father the basic rundown of what transpired with Sam the previous night. After a frantic inquiry that eventually satisfies John that Sam is not badly injured, Dean waits for the expected tirade over his failures in keeping his brother safe and he's not disappointed.

His father's infuriated voice carried loudly over the connection, and for the briefest of seconds, Dean entertained a ridiculous notion that the man's ire might be enough to melt the phone as he held it. The rebuke ends sooner than he would have suspected, and he can only guess that John is waiting to see him in person before finishing the task of ripping him a new hole.

He doesn't need his father to reprimand him. He's doing a pretty good job all on his own.

/

John ambles along the cracked cement walkway leading up to the front stairs of Caleb's house and lets himself in without knocking. Caleb already knows he's here, because John taught him to be observant like that. If he catches the younger man off his guard, John will happily go a few rounds with him and reinforce his earlier teachings.

A lax awareness on Caleb's part could get the young hunter dead, and John has already lost enough people in his life.

Caleb is working at the dining room table, and looks up with a smile when John enters. There is a gun and a knife within easy reach of the younger man's hands, and John grins, knowing the kind of reception that anyone besides himself would have received.

From Dean's last phone call, he knows that his son will be arriving any minute and he wants to be waiting for him. Dean must be hauling ass as he is making the trip in less than three hours and John knows better than to think it is because his son is anxious to be on the hunt.

When Dean called him that morning and explained what had happened, John had lost his temper with his oldest and verbally flayed the boy alive for allowing such a thing to happen. Furthermore, he was entirely put out by Dean's insistence that John himself pack up and go to Sam's court appearance with him.

But it didn't take long for John to catch the note of defeat in Dean's voice as the boy took full responsibility for Sam's actions and begged his father's forgiveness for failing him, making John kick himself for his earlier rebuke.

He knows first hand how difficult his youngest can be, knows how much he has failed his children himself time and again. Dean has unfairly been forced to grow up well before his time, almost unfailingly rising to the occasion without hesitation or complaint, and John routinely acknowledges that he has placed an unfair burden on his oldest son's shoulders.

Something has gone horribly wrong between his boys and he knows, especially in light of his new information about Mary, that it is time for him to put aside the hunt for a minute and take care of his children.

The distinct rumble of the Impala's engine heralds his son's arrival and he rises from the well worn sofa to open the door of the house. It takes just a few seconds for Dean to spot him and John guilty observes the hesitant and cautious way that his son approaches him. While it is true that he has always thought it best to instill a healthy sense of fear of himself into his sons in his bid to keep them obedient of his orders and, subsequently, safer, it has never been his intention to make them afraid to talk to him.

Watching Dean's blatant unease, he realizes that this is exactly what he has done.

When his son climbs the front steps and is standing directly in front of him, John easily sees the dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep and Dean's posture, usually as rigid as any Marine in formation when he is standing in his father's presence, is slumped in defeat.

But most telling of all is the haunted look in the bright green eyes that are one of the only physical characteristics that his oldest inherited from John's own mother. One glance and John knows instantly that there is something decidedly broken in his son.

In a small gesture of affection, John reaches out and cups the back of Dean's neck, his thumb gently rubbing just underneath his hairline. He wants to hug his son, John has never shied away from showing his children affection. But Dean can get skittish, and prickly about physical contact when he's feeling especially low, and John knows how hard he is taking his own part in last night's fiasco.

Dean won't want to accept his father's embrace right now, and John doesn't force him. Any further attempt might result in the boy having his emotional barriers completely break down, and neither one of them can bear that right now.

He tugs Dean inside the room, releasing him to grab the neck of a bottle of _El Sol_ , Dean's favorite beer. He pushes the bottle into his son's right hand and a thick folder of research on the reports of eaten bodies that Caleb is actually researching into the left.

Through this, neither have spoken a word, but as Dean sips the pale ale and peruses the file, he shoots his father several grateful looks. John is actually not the heartless bastard that many of his fellow hunters and, from time to time, his youngest son believe him to be. On occasion, he does have a sense of what his children truly need.

/

Sam spends the weekend holed up in the room that he and his brother usually share in Uncle Bobby's house. From time to time the salvage man knocks on the door and tries to coax the boy out for a meal, or even just some fresh air, but Sam has no interest in talking to or seeing anybody. He lays on his stomach on the bed and tries to breath through the lead weight that is pressing down on his chest.

Just a couple of days ago, his life had happiness and order to it, and now it lay in ruins right at his feet, and there didn't seem to be anything he could do about it.

He wasn't quite sure what had made him act so stupidly. Blind to see the things around him that were going on while he wasn't even bothering to pay attention.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Kristin had been cheating on him for a while. Maybe the entire time. That thought had sobered him, and destroyed what little confidence he had managed to build up in the romance department. Always terminally shy in the first place, it hadn't been easy to open up to a girl like that.

It's not like he had any good experiences with a girl. The only other one he had ever even kissed had been a monster that his father and brother had been hunting.

Amy had killed her own mother to save Sam's life, so it wasn't exactly what you would call a healthy relationship.

It didn't matter anyway.

His relationship with Kristin, regardless of what it may or may not have been, was well and truly over, and Sam was resigned to just dig further into his studies and bide his time unattached until he could graduate.

Dad and Dean had always told him that he couldn't have connections in the life they led, and Sam had always balked at that, thinking that it would be easier in civilian life. Apparently, he was wrong. It was just as painful to lose someone when you were normal.

He couldn't make himself try to call the other three that had been in the car that night. Michael most of all. Sam had never had any real close friends, besides his brother.

And he couldn't think about Dean right now because that topic was far too painful to allow in through the cracks of his consciousness.

For so many years, Sam had been sure that if he was just given the chance to stay still in one place long enough to let people get to know the real him, he would easily slide into a regular life. He had been given that chance here. The opportunity to live like he had always dreamed of doing at night while lying in the bed of another random motel room and feeling sorry for himself.

This time he didn't have his father to blame for dragging him away from a girl or from friends. This time it was all on Sam, and that knowledge crushed him even further.

He wouldn't have thought he would find himself feeling a degree of shame for blaming John for all of his unhappiness. It was much easier to lash out at his father and brother for all for all of the injustices he felt about their lifestyle.

Dad has prepared Sam for many things in life, but his father never prepared Sam for the hurt and rejection that a kid could be subjected to when it wasn't coupled with the overwhelming burden of a hunter's life. Truthfully, Sam wouldn't have thought it possible, sure that every negative experience he had regarding a social life was because of the fucked up way they lived, and not just the hazards of being the average American teenager.

Now that he was thinking more rationally, he had to come to the uncomfortable conclusion that he had no business being such an ass about his family's restrictions in the first place. For all of his talk of wanting normal, he had certainly been intentionally ignoring the very real fact that most of his friends had rules and curfews of their own to obey. Maybe not all as strict as Sam's, although some of them were.

In his desire to have a different life altogether, he found himself wanting everything, and when reality interfered with the apple pie life he envisioned for himself, it was a cold cup of coffee to the face when he finally understood that no one's life was perfect.

No matter how much a person could have, it usually didn't stop them from wanting more.

Sam was coming late to that party of thought, and he had only needed to lose his girlfriend, alienate his friends and demolish his relationship with his brother to do it.

Dad always did tell him that if you were going to do a job, make sure you go all the way.

Somehow, Sam didn't think that John would be too pleased with the lengths his youngest son went in this particular endeavor.

The hours passed slowly. Day falling into night, then day again, and then another quiet dark night alone his room. Uncle Bobby pulled the adult card and demanded his presence at the dinner table Sunday. Sam knew that his uncle cared for him, and was worried, but while he could force Sam to sit at the table, he couldn't force him to eat.

Eventually Sam was allowed back upstairs to continue his vigil of sleepless worry.

Over the weekend, he had called Dean's phone almost a dozen times, desperate to try and talk to his brother. To make amends with the one person who had always been there for him, no matter what, and who Sam had thoroughly destroyed without a second thought to how biting and vicious his words were when he was saying them.

The calls all went straight to voicemail, and eventually he had just stopped, knowing that if he was in Dean's shoes, he wouldn't want to talk to Sam either. Uncle Bobby had mentioned during their aborted dinner that he had spoken to Dean just a little earlier, so at least Sam knew his brother was still alive.

Dean, who had given up everything to move Sam into a real house. Dean, who worked hard all day to pay bills so they were living on the level for once. Dean, who managed to convince their father to let Sam attend a good school that drastically increased his college acceptance levels. Dean, who happily ferried Sam everywhere he wanted to go, and paid for his fancy tuition. Cooked their meals and did their laundry.

Dean, who had never asked for anything in return except a little consideration, which Sam hadn't even been able to summon up over his own desires.

The list was endless, when Sam ran them all through his head. He let out a gut wrenching unmanly sob and cried for being such a selfish and inconsiderate asshole, because he genuinely loved his brother more than anyone else in the world, including either of their parents, and he knew that he was the cause of the pain in Dean's eyes that last morning.

It might be too late now. Dean might have just finally said the hell with it and gone his own way, and Sam would have no one to blame but himself because he was the one that told his perpetually unselfish brother to get a life.

Dean had a life.

The one he routinely gave to Sam and to Dad.

As the clock on the wall ticked ever closer to the hour when Sam would have to get up for school Monday morning, he vowed that he would do whatever it took to get his brother back. Even if it meant going back on the road where Dean was happiest.

He owed that much to his brother.

/

There was nothing like cutting off a few zombie heads to make Dean Winchester happy.

Out in the field, machete at the ready, pumped up and swinging, Dean was able to shut off his mind and enjoy laying waste to evil.

It was supposed to be a two man job.

Caleb and John had been prepared to take it on alone, but with Dean's unexpected last minute arrival, they had more than enough manpower.

Not that they needed it.

With Dean desperate to get out of his own head space, the young hunter had blazed in, steadfast and determined, and took down the entire cursed cemetery almost completely on his own.

John had watched his boy, with a mixture of pride and terror as Dean lay waste to the undead bodies in his wake. His son was a talented hunter, to be sure, and while John could appreciate the skill Dean exhibited, the father in John didn't like the cold look of murder in his child's eyes.

Hunters needed that special brand of bravery and air of no hesitation to get the job done, but it didn't mean that Dean's Dad was comfortable seeing it exhibited by his kid in that ruthless of a manner.

Once the hunt was over, John had taken off, after giving Dean his word that he would be there for Sam's court appearance. Dean and Caleb spent the night going out on the town, and Caleb wasn't the least bit surprised when Dean gave him the signal that he was hooking up with the waitress at the bar they where they spent the night drinking and playing darts.

In the pale shades of dawn, Dean lay in the tangled up sheets of the waitress' bed.

Mindy? Mandy? Cindy?

It didn't matter. One pretty face just blurred into another over time.

The bed smelled like Impulse Body Spray and sex as Dean slipped out from under the rumpled flat sheet. The ambient light peeking in through the window illuminated his nude form, muscles taut and chiseled like a Rodin sculpture.

If he was being perfectly honest, part of his unattached indifference towards women stemmed from the fact that he was so often objectified himself. He was a good looking guy.

He knew it.

While covering over the cracks of his low self image with finely crafted bravado, he would often go over the top to brag about it.

Sammy, Sam, often poked at Dean's casual disregard for the women he had sex with, but what his know-it-all little brother didn't realize was that a lot of ladies were just as happy to use Dean's body for their own pleasure.

Lust and a tendency for acting shallow wasn't reserved solely for guys.

As angry and hurt as he was, Dean really hoped that his little brother never felt the rejection of a woman who had only been interested in having an attractive guy service her desires without feeling a need to bother to even ask his name sometimes, or stick around long enough to find out what he had to offer.

And Dean did have a lot to offer.

Of course, it wasn't for the women that shared a bed with him, or the backseat of his car, because he only had so much on tap, and what he did have he reserved for his family.

Dad and Sam both took a lot of energy. More than Dean could painlessly summon up somedays. Sometimes what it took to make them happy came at the cost of Dean's own life force.

Yet he would give it willingly, in full, every single time, because that is what you did for family, and regardless of his brother's hurtful words, Dean wasn't going to apologize for it.

Dean didn't have friends because he didn't have time for them. When Sammy, Sam, was out socializing and trying to fit in, Dean was worrying to death about keeping them both safe and fed when their father would disappear for weeks at a time.

While his little brother was reading books and waxing poetic about the unfairness in life, Dean was making sure that Sam's clothes were clean so they didn't look homeless and uncared for at their ever changing schools.

There just wasn't any time for the older brother to get a life of his own.

For that matter, Dean couldn't get a woman of his own because he had chosen his life already. The life of a hunter.

And it was brutal. And dangerous. Unpredictable, and came at the cost of loved ones. And it only ended one way.

Dean may be callous, but he wasn't callous enough to leave behind a wife and kids to grieve him when he got dead before the age of thirty.

He could never, ever do that to family.

It was selfish and cruel and he wasn't going to be the kind of man that did that.

It was hard enough to worry about his father and brother in the lives they led. Dean knew he would never survive losing either of them and remain whole. The loss of his mother had already taken a huge part of him, and any other loss would slash away more vital organs, leaving Dean a broken wreck of a human being.

Every hunt they undertook had him hoping against hope that if someone had to go out bloody, it would be him and not one of the other Winchester men.

John and Sam were strong, and they would both survive losing him far better than he could survive the loss of them.

So he didn't date with intent. And he didn't extend his hand in close friendship.

Because it was purely self defense that he didn't put himself in a position where he would be increasing the number of people that it would break him to lose.

Why Sam couldn't realize that, Dean didn't know, and honestly, he no longer had the strength to try and get his kid brother to understand.

Sammy kept calling, and damn it, Dean wanted to answer, because it was ingrained in him to respond when his brother needed him. Like the classic conditioning of a Pavlovian dog unable to stop, and it was humiliating that he was twenty-one and had molded his entire life around his kid brother's needs and happiness.

When clearly Sam didn't need him anymore. Resented him and chafed under his thumb as much as he ever had under their Dad's heavy hand. At least Sam showed a grudging deference to their father in acknowledging that the man had some right to steer him to manhood.

As if Dean hadn't been raising his little brother right alongside himself, when Dean was a scared kid, trying to figure it all out on his own and unwilling to burden their dad with inane questions and insecure moments.

It was no wonder that Dean chose to lose himself in a hunt, or a woman, or a six pack of beer, desperate, just for a moment to lose the crushing weight that accompanied his terror that his best would never be good enough to care for his brother. The person who mattered to him above everything else.

Dean spent the next couple of days crashing on Caleb's couch, not bothering to mess up one of the guest room beds. He didn't need much for himself, sleeping only a few hours a day anyway, and a lumpy couch was good enough for him.

Caleb was already off on another job, and Dean had been tempted to go along, but the job was in Arizona, and the part of Dean that didn't trust his father completely to be at Sam's side when he went to court kept the big brother within a few hours drive of Sioux Falls, just in case.

He spent the better part of that day walking the streets of downtown Lincoln, observing, with a hunter's critical eye, the hordes of people coming and going without care. Mired in the banality of their every day lives, without an inkling of what lurked in the shadows.

Most of them didn't even pay attention to him as he walked along, unless it was to get the occasional leering hopeful stare from a woman or, sometimes, even the occasional man.

As he watched them all scurry about their ordinary, everyday business, he knew, deep in his gut, that he would throw himself into hunt to protect them.

But he could never be one of them.

Because that wasn't his life.

/

It's just after two in the afternoon when John's truck pulls into Singer Salvage. He's left Dean with Caleb in Lincoln, the hunt they took together during the weekend successfully completed, and John's own side trip to Blue Earth yielding more disquieting information about Mary's parents that he really didn't want to contemplate just yet.

When this mini-drama with Sam is over, he has a few more trips to make, but he can't think about that now because the very weight of them will incapacitate him, and he still has his boys to care for at the moment.

Bobby answers the door when he knocks and the two exchange quick perfunctory pleasantries. An outsider would be hard pressed to believe that the two men are actually friends from looking at their body language, but there is no doubt that they are.

Over time, the distance between them has grown, as John's obsession took over more and more, but they are still as close as family ever could be, and John will always be that scared but determined young father that he was when he first arrived on Bobby's doorstep all those years ago.

Sam, alerted to his father's arrival by the sound of the truck's throaty motor, is already standing nervously by the couch, chewing on his pinkie nail when his father comes into the room. His shoulders are hunched in either defeat or sadness, or a combination of both, making him look significantly smaller than his increasing height.

"Let's go, Samuel," John commands, his words stern and unyielding.

Sam immediately obeys, grabbing his backpack and go-bag, hurrying over to where his father is standing. He has no desire to infuriate John more than he has already by giving him any attitude. John jerks his chin in Bobby's direction and stares at his son meaningfully.

"What do you say?" he demands, and Sam feels his face flushing at the humiliating prompt.

"Thank you for letting me stay over for the last few days, Uncle Bobby," he replies as politely as he can.

He knows what is expected of him. Good manners have been drummed into their heads since they were old enough to speak, and although the boys have practically lived in this house, they are still expected to be appreciative.

Bobby watches them uneasily as John snags Sam by the back of the boy's jacket and firmly pushes him towards the door. He knows that John is rough by nature but, in all fairness, especially after that regrettable incident, truly incapable of doing anything to genuinely hurt either of his boys. However, he isn't foolish enough to not know that Sam is in for it when his father gets him alone and, for once, Bobby agrees.

"Thanks for keeping an eye on him, Bobby," John mutters.

His words are quiet and gruff, but they are genuine and Bobby knows this. Bobby's not a religious man, having lost faith in the Almighty right around the time his wife got possessed, but he's still praying that everything works itself out for the little family.

These past few days have been rough on all of them.

Strapped into the passenger seat of his father's big black truck, Sam keeps his eyes glued to the floor as John yells. He doesn't actually have to pay attention to the words to understand what his father is saying, knowing perfectly well how many Winchester family rules he has smashed and, on this occasion, his father's chastisement doesn't inspire him to go on the offensive.

He's too broken up about what he has done to his relationship with his brother to care about anything else. He knows that there will be a reckoning when his father gets him alone later, and he doesn't particularly care about that either.

For his part, John unloads his irritation on his youngest until he realizes that Sam is already cowed to the point of not feeling anymore. He's been expecting the usual fight that comes from his son and it never materializes. For once, Sam has mostly kept his mouth shut, simply inserting the appropriate 'yes sirs' and 'no sirs' where required and quietly apologizing repeatedly. He wonders if Sam is really that nervous over his court appearance and lets it go for the moment.

They arrive at the small town court twenty minutes ahead of schedule and join the other parties already sitting in the folding chairs in front of the table that John assumes the town justice uses as his bench. Dean has already explained the situation to him in detail and John scans the room out of habit to try and get a feel for the other people present.

Taylor's father notices them and makes his way over. Once again he thanks Sam for what he did in assisting the other kids, especially his little girl. Sam is shy suddenly, blushing because the man doesn't know that it was because of him that they were in the car in the first place. Although the other three have made it perfectly clear in the last two days that they don't blame him, Sam still blames himself.

Taylor's father also thanks John for Sam's knowledge and quick thinking, and John puts a warm hand on Sam's back, proud of his boy, as he returns the thanks for the man's part in Sam's reduced charges. They end the conversation on warm terms as the judge takes the bench.

The hearing goes about as well as John expects. There are a lot of other people in court today. After what seems like forever, the kids are called up to the makeshift bench in turn with their parents. Sam is called second and John pushes his boy to his feet as they approach.

Sam knows what is expected of him and he speaks and reacts accordingly, properly throwing himself at the court's mercy as he knows is required to facilitate his exit from this legal sideshow. John assures the justice that his son has learned his lesson, that they appreciate the consideration of the lesser charge, and that they are willing to pay the fine.

After bestowing the obligatory legal reprimand, the judge releases Sam and directs them over to the court clerk for payment. When John pulls out his wallet to pay, the clerk informs them that Dean had made the payment Friday afternoon, and the disclosure proves to be too much for Sam to handle. He bolts out the door and throws up in the bushes outside the courthouse.

/

In the quiet and semi darkness of Sam's room, John threads his belt back through the loops of his jeans as he watched his son sleep fitfully. If he wasn't feeling helpless about the situation between his boys before, he definitely is now.

Sam was completely silent on the drive back to the house and, in a rare moment of indulgence, John almost decided that the kid had had enough for one day. But his sons have very little consistency in their lives, and discipline and obeying orders are the things that keep them safe.

Sam knows from years of experience what to expect from his father for his behavior and John feels compelled to follow through even though he doesn't particularly want to on this occasion. The past few days have done a number on John and all he wants to do is hug both of his kids and maybe take them out for a movie or a wrestling match if he can find one.

Unfortunately, he can't afford to have either of his boys question his authority and Sam already has a bad tendency towards it.

Once upon a time, John was a good father and, especially now, he is feeling the need to prove that again. One of the things a good father can do is give his children what they need, and occasionally what they need is a firm kick to the ass.

Back at the house, he immediately sends Sam to his room, surprised when his son complies without a single word of protest, because his youngest is famous for working up a head of steam and railing against the injustice of whatever he's being punished for. When John follows him up there a few minutes later, his belt folded up in his hand, he's already steeling himself for the expected shouting match that has become a part of the routine since Sammy was twelve and began standing up to his father in earnest.

This time, it was different.

Sam didn't utter one word as John entered the room, sitting on the edge of his bed, with his hands clasped between his knees and his head down in defeat. He seems surprised when John walks right in, because it's a thing now that he actually has a door of his own to keep closed, and John's pretty sure that Dean would have knocked first. For a second John realizes that maybe he should have as well, because privacy is a rare commodity in their world.

Sam's taken the time to change into his sleep clothes, and John knows that his son will want to just crawl into bed and lick his wounds in private when they are done. Sam's a sulker after a whipping, often ignoring his father and brother for hours.

The boy looks up enough to see that John's belt is already off and ready to get down to business. He swipes a hand across his face, stands shakily and turns around, about to bend over the bed when his father grabs him gently by the arm and forces Sam to look at him.

John takes one look at his son's face, tears streaming down his thin cheeks and a look in his hazel eyes that breaks his father's heart.

This isn't like Sam.

His youngest is forever spitting fire and bucking every punishment he's ever been given. Never once has he broken down ahead of time and it scares his father.

He guides Sam down to sit back on the bed, taking a place next to him as he palms the side of Sam's face and gives the boy a probing look that leaves no question about what he's asking. Sam chokes for a second and the voice he responds in is that of a young child, hurt and confused, and it's almost too painful for John to bear.

"He's never going to forgive me."

As if a light had been switched on, Sam began to ramble, spitting out every bit of what had happened during the past few days in vivid and emotional detail. His thundercloud of guilt permeated the entire room as he despondently confessed to how badly he had screwed up, including the terrible accusations that he had hurled at his brother and his own shame for having hurt him so badly.

John knows that Sam isn't worked up over the party, because every kid has a moment or two of stupidity and rebellion.

John's had plenty himself.

The kid might have some guilt over getting their family noticed by the local police, since it has been drilled into him since childhood to avoid letting that happen, but John is also pretty sure that this would be one of the things that would usually have Sam raging about the unfairness of their lives, that he has to worry about such caution in the first place.

It wouldn't cause tears.

He's also pretty sure that it's not due to any embarrassment his son is feeling over his relationship with the cute blonde that Dean has told him about. Mary had been so incredibly beautiful, and John knows he isn't lacking in the looks department either, so he's not surprised that their two beautiful baby boys have become good looking young men. Sam's awkward adolescence might still have him reluctant to realize this about himself, but there is no doubt that John's youngest is now eye candy for the young ladies.

But then Sam spills all of the hurtful and mean spirited jabs he took at his brother, who had not done anything to deserve them. To his son's credit, Sam hasn't censored anything in his own defense, including the pointed references to John's own less than stellar parenting skills, and John tries not to be wounded over such a blatant observation.

Not that his youngest ever sugarcoats over the defects that he sees in his father, but poor Dean is usually not dragged into the mix.

John finds his temper rising and falling during Sammy's confession, but he tamps it down with blunt force because this time he is going to listen to everything that his boy has to say, regardless of how cruel and painful it is.

When his son was finally spent, John had a crystal clear picture and he now knows exactly why his oldest looked as haggard and devastated as he had. An assault of that kind from the brother he so fiercely adores would have been catastrophic to Dean, who only lets down his guard around his father and brother.

And not even always then, either.

Wearily, John also acknowledged to himself that he is more than partially responsible for this mess as well. He has put too much on Dean's shoulders since Sam was born, and he has intentionally made them dependent on one another so they won't be left floundering and alone if he falls.

Eventually, after his youngest is done confessing, he had coaxed an emotionally wrecked Sam into the bed and encouraged him to try and get some much needed sleep. Singer hadn't been kidding when he said that Sam never slept at his house. Completely drained, Sam put up no resistance, obediently crawling under his blankets, and hopeful for the sweet and uncomplicated release of slumber.

Feeling immense sadness, John sat on the edge of the bed and watched over his achingly young looking son until Sam's breathing finally evened out. It's not often that he's around when his kids are emotionally hurting, and even less often that either of his children will allow him to care for them, and he is woefully out of practice, as much as he regrets that.

He bitterly pushed back against the crushing tide of his own failures and is smart enough to realize that what both of his boys need is each other. A design of his own making that is now biting him in the ass when he sees first hand proof of what it does to them to be apart.

Once he is sure that Sam is out for the count, he makes his way downstairs and into the kitchen, pulls his cellphone out and dials.

/

"Come home, Son."

Panic wedged in his throat, Dean races back to Sioux Falls as if Lucifer himself was giving chase, the tone in his father's summons scaring the crap out of him. Although John has assured him that Sam is safe and sleeping in his room, in no physical danger, he also said that Sam needs him, truly needs him, and Dean wastes no time getting back.

Any thought of hurt he still feels from his little brother's words vanish when the reflex of the protective big brother kicks back in with a vengeance.

He pulls into the driveway, parking behind his father's truck and practically jumps from the car and bolts through the front door. John is sitting on the sofa in the living room, the bottle of Jose Cuervo that Dean has kept in the upper cabinet for his visits open and partially drained on the coffee table in front of him. His father looks bone tired as he nurses the tumbler in his hand.

"Sit down, Son. We need to talk."

Fifteen tense minutes later, Dean climbs the stairs and walks over to Sam's room, gently rapping on the door before entering. The room is dark, soft moonlight casting shadows on the blue walls, but he can make out the faint outline of his brother on the bed. Sam is lying with his back to the door and Dean slowly makes his way over, sitting on the edge, the mattress dipping under his weight and alerting Sam to the fact that there is someone next to him.

Sam wakes, but doesn't turn around, thinking that it is John come to check on him. He's embarrassed by his earlier outburst, knowing how his father feels about overt displays of emotion. He keeps his eyes shut in the hope that his father will just assume that he is still sleeping and leave, and is completely unprepared for the voice he hears.

"Heya, Sammy," Dean says softly, and the sound of his brother's voice makes Sam's breathing hitch.

He spins around in surprise and sees the gentle familiar look on his big brother's face. The look that tells him that things may be okay after all. Sam sits up abruptly against the headboard, his eyes wide with shock, staring at Dean like he's not sure that his brother is really there. Dean gives him a knowing and sympathetic smile and the warm affection in his eyes starts to soothe the pain in Sam's chest.

"You okay, tiger?" Dean teases, a small smirking playing around the corners of his mouth. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Sam nods his head slightly, still somewhat dazed to see his brother sitting there and actually smiling at him. Dean determinedly holds his smile, hopefully long enough to convince Sam that everything is alright and, before he knows it, he finds himself with an armful of little brother as Sam ducks his head into Dean's shoulder.

He feels Sam trembling, knowing his emo kid well enough to guess that more tears are on the way, so he puts extra exertion into the hold he has around Sammy's shoulders, desperately trying to keep his little brother together before he breaks.

They don't speak for several minutes until the unaccustomed closeness starts to make Dean feel uncomfortable. Not that he minds hugging his little brother, especially after everything that has happened, but he is dangerously close to breaking down himself, and his continuing need to stay strong in front of the kid eventually forces him to gently push Sam away.

With a practiced eye, he takes a long hard look at his little brother. Notices the pale face and the dark circles around his eyes.

"Hey, when was the last time you really ate or slept, Sammy? You look like hell."

Mouth gaping in surprise, Sam doesn't respond to the question. He fidgets, trying to rein in his emotions which are all over the place. With another chance to apologize to his brother, he starts to speak before being interrupted when Dean holds his hand up.

"Don't, Sammy," he says quietly, recognizing the look on Sam's face. "It's over. Everything's okay. I swear."

Reluctantly, Sam respects his brother's unwillingness to discuss the tempest of hurt feelings between them and nods briefly, just grateful for whatever forgiveness Dean is willing to give him. Dean nods back at him and for the first time in days, both brothers feel the tension start to slip away.

"C'mon. I'm going to make you something to eat. You need some calories, little brother. And be extra nice to Dad, okay? You really worried him," Dean says over his shoulder as he leaves Sam's room.

When Sam quietly pads his way down into the living room, he sees his father sitting on the sofa in front of the old television, the telltale bottle of Jose a third empty on the coffee table.

As is his way when he is feeling vulnerable, Sam shuffles forward towards the sofa and lays down on it, tucking his long legs up on the end and resting his head on his father's balled up leather jacket that John grabs and lays on his own lap, knowing that his youngest is physically and emotionally wrecked and craving comfort.

Sam's emotions only come in two flavors.

Hostile Warrior and Wounded Puppy.

Hostile Warrior is winning by a mile these days, but Wounded Puppy still makes the occasional appearance and is not too proud to seek solace from his dad when he is sick or hurting.

Unlike Dean, whose regard for their father is respectful and steady, Sam is always either slugging it out or hugging it out with John. He knows that his dad is probably not done with him yet for this little episode, a Winchester boy never escapes a promised whipping, but he's simply too tired to care about that right now.

Sam breathes in the comforting mix of leather, gun oil, smoke, peppermint lozenges and cheap motel soap that he associates with his father. The familiar scent that reassures him that his dad is safe and sound and not bleeding out on the side of road somewhere. Wrung out on all fronts from several crappy days, he doesn't care if he is too old for this either.

Despite what John may think, given Sam's earlier condemnations, Sam will someday make John understand that he loves his father deeply, worries for him constantly, and his frequent rebellion against their lifestyle is driven from his desire to want them ALL out before he loses another member of his small family.

John doesn't say a word about the overt demand for cuddling from his usually angry and standoffish child, knowing days like this are numbered, and he obligingly cards his fingers soothingly through Sam's dark hair while they watch some nonsense on TV.

Sam is old enough to handle a man's burden, mature in ways that other teens don't ever have to contemplate, as evidenced by his cool, quick thinking during the accident. But maybe his father is feeling a little guilty over the fact that his boys were forced to abandon their childhoods too soon, so he's not going to say anything about his almost grown son's need for affection.

Dean observes them from the kitchen for a moment, a fond smile on his face. His kid brother is a tough little bastard unless he is overly tired, sick or it's, you know, freakin' Tuesday. He's feeling lighter than he has in a few days, grabbing a beer from the fridge and beginning to hum Ramble On contentedly as he flips the grilled cheese sandwiches he has on the stove, a genuine smile of happiness on his face.

For now, the little family is back to their version of normal.

John and Sam are actually both asleep by the time Dean has finished making the late night snack, and he doesn't have the heart to wake either of them. His father can sleep anywhere, in any uncomfortable position, especially with some tequila riding shotgun in his veins, and Sam seems pretty comfortable taking up the lion's share of the couch, although his legs will surely still have cramps in the morning.

As quietly as he can, Dean grabs a couple of spare blankets from the cabinet in the mud room and spreads them over his sleeping family, before he settles himself into the stuffed chair next to the couch. Sure he could go up to his own room and sleep in his comfortable bed after a few rough days on the road, but it's been a while since all the Winchesters slept in the security of the same room together, and Dean's not one to toss away a gift slumber party.

It's the best night's sleep he's had in months.

Another heavy snowstorm during the night gets all the local schools shut down the next day. No one actually needs to be up to go anywhere, however John, even hungover, is an early riser. He already has coffee on and breakfast cooking when his sons start to wake up, and they are soon lured to the table with the aromatic promises of pancakes and bacon.

It's not often that he gets to cook for his boys anymore, and even less often that he can dote on them. When he brings plates over to the table, Dean's pancakes are studded with the chocolate chips he loves, and Sam's stack already has a moat of maple syrup poured around the edges and, for a few moments, they feel like children again.

While they eat they talk about the hunt Dean completed, and John is both complimentary and critical, which is an improvement over the usually just critical debrief, and Dean will happily take it because his father's approval and advice are the particles of oxygen in his lungs.

When they are finished, John quietly but firmly reminds his youngest that they still need to head back upstairs for a while to take care of unfinished business. Sam responds with a respectful _yes sir_ , and none of his usual attitude, getting up to follow his father to the stairs.

Dean's taken a dozen punishments for his brother over the years, always more at ease with being the one under the gun that having to witness his brother's pain. Even as much as Sam has hurt the insecure child inside of Dean to the point where he might think Sam has earned this one, the larger part of Dean, the big brother who has spent his entire life taking care of Sammy, wiping his tears, his nose and his butt, hates to see the kid upset.

He busies himself with the dishes while they head to Sam's room and turns the volume on the radio near the sink up a little higher than normal because they have a house now, and he no longer has to overhear his brother's distress.

The whole thing is over quickly, and just minutes later John is making his way back down the stairs as Dean is finishing up the silverware. John's face is a little more grim than he had been at breakfast, his eyes sad and weary, and Dean knows that it's because what has transpired in the last few minutes is the part of fatherhood that his dad really hates. Dad grabs his coat and heads towards the door.

"Going to the store to get the papers. Need anything?"

"No, Sir." Dean shakes his head, and the two share a look of understanding before John heads out. Dad needs a brisk walk and some cool air to get himself together right now.

A few minutes more and he hears Sam's tentative footsteps on the stairs before his little brother joins him in the kitchen, surprised that the kid doesn't want to stay in the privacy of his room. Sam's nose is running a little, his eyes red rimmed and slightly wet. He's subdued and contrite, his gait noticeably stiff as he ambles over to hover in Dean's immediate space.

Dad has apparently made a real impression this morning and Dean knows from experience that his little brother will be feeling this one for a while. But Sam's not pissy, mouthy or sullen like he usually is after that particular brand of father/son time. He's leaning with his hip against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest, and looking _so damn young_ that Dean's heart aches.

He knows without being told that Sam's willingness to go upstairs with their father had nothing to do with his guilt from going to that stupid party.

The mood is too heavy in the room, and Dean feels a desperate need to lighten it before they both sink.

"Need another hug?" The tone is light, playful, and it works, pulling a small smirk from his little brother's sad face.

"Jerk."

Dean grins, but he does give his little brother a quick one armed hug, giving the kid the option of pushing him away or taking the offered comfort, depending on his mood.

Sam hugs back, his chin resting on Dean's shoulder, and before his big brother can protest he mutters a quiet _sorry_ that makes Dean's gut clench before he gently pushes Sam away, turning him towards the living room and propelling him back towards the couch.

"Bitch."

He pulls the rank of big brother and decides that the two of them are going to spend the rest of the snowy morning watching movies. Bobby had given them an old VCR, and while Sam settles himself back under the blanket and stretches out, Dean grabs a bag from his wandering shopping spree in Lincoln, and pulls out used VHS tapes of _Beastmaster_ and _Beastmaster 2_ , ignoring the grin on Sam's face when he sees the covers. The magic of secondhand shops.

The younger brother knows that he is being indulged with his favorites that normally Dean would never willingly watch, and it cheers him up when he realizes that his brother went out of his way to buy the tapes when things were still bad between them.

When John comes back with his papers, his boys are relaxed and comfortable in front of the TV. Sam curled up under the blanket, and Dean sitting on the floor, his back propped up against the couch just a few inches away from where Sam's head is resting on a pillow.

Dean gives him an out-of-character, slightly challenging look, as if daring him to order them away from the TV for research or training or some other drudging task that usually marks their time together. John's eldest has a lifetime supply of _Loyal and Obedient Son_ chits built up and he's clearly cashing some in today.

Even though he's not too thrilled with Dean's foray into insolence, John doesn't call him on it, nor does he object, for once, the boys taking some personal time. Instead, he goes and grabs research files out of his truck and spreads them out on the kitchen table so he can keep an eye on his boys while he works.

When he takes off his jacket, he reaches into the pocket and pulls out a bag of peanut M&Ms for Dean and bag of Gummy Bears for Sam, tossing them to his kids who catch them easily, and he smiles at their sharp reflexes.

It's enough training for the day, he justifies to himself, and he gets to work.

John Winchester may not win any father of the years awards, but he has always tried to be there for his kids when they really need him.

/

The house smells wonderfully of pine that morning, and Dean grudgingly admits to himself that Sam was right about getting a real tree. Even though picking it out in the two feet of snow at the tree farm had been a monster pain in the ass, it was worth it in the end.

It's a pretty thing, perched in the corner of the living room, and decorated with old fashioned balls and lights that Bobby found packed up in his attic. They've put some lights outside as well, around the windows and the railing for the front porch, because the neighbors decorate, and this year the Winchesters will too.

They're not children anymore, and money can still be a little tight, but there is a decent pile of poorly wrapped presents under the tree. None of them are particularly good at it.

Dean is studying a cookbook, trying to figure out what went wrong with the cinnamon rolls he made this morning that look like gnarled clumps of crusty goop.

"What time is Dad getting here?"

Sam has stepped away from the computer and is now pouring his third cup of coffee and dropping bread slices into the toaster, because those rolls were supposed to be breakfast, not some culinary form of medieval torture.

"Soon. He's just a few minutes out." Dean slams the book shut in defeat and dumps the whole pan into the trash because it'll just be easier buying a new one than trying to clean it.

While Sam is putting jelly on his toast they hear an unfamiliar car pull up to the hous, and Dean frowns, going on alert and gesturing to Sam to go and check the window. The younger brother moves quickly and stealthily across the living room and peeks out from the corner of the curtains for a second before relaxing.

"It's Dad. Did something happen to his truck? He's driving this kick ass Camaro."

Sam looks confused, and Dean just shrugs, jerking his head towards the door to get Sam moving. John's not coming inside, so Sam heads out to meet him, his brother hot on his heels.

"Merry Christmas, Dad!" Sam calls out, smiling even as his eyebrows furrow questioningly. "What's with the classic carjacking?"

John is smiling from ear to ear, showing off the dimples that he has passed down to his younger son. Turning to Dean who is also grinning, they share a knowing look as Sam switches his gaze from one to the other.

"Merry Christmas, Sammy." John flips the keys in his hand to his youngest, who catches them easily, still confused until he sees the front grill has a red bow tied to it.

Realization dawns on him and his eyes widen comically, causing peals of laughter from his father and his brother as he throws his arms around his father and hugs him enthusiastically.

"Merry Christmas, little brother," Dean says softly, coming over to join them.

"It was your brother's idea," John say, releasing his youngest. "He's been working on it for months."

Not about to take full credit, Dean reaches over to slap John's back.

"We did it together. Dad's been coming into town just to work on it with me."

Sam turns to hug his brother and holds on tight, amazed that they have done this for him. When they step back from each other, John glances at Dean and gets a quick nod. His firstborn knows what he's about to do. Pulling an envelope from his coat pocket, he hands it over to Sam with a sad wistfulness on his face.

"It's not the same one," he warns, not wanting Sam to get too excited. "But it is identical."

Sam's confusion is back, and he tentatively reaches for the envelope. At his father's prompting, he opens it cautiously and pulls out the contents. As soon as he sees it, his face loses two shades of color and his lower lip begins to tremble.

"Mom?"

"She had one exactly like this, Son," John says, as he puts a steadying arm around Sam's shoulders. "God, she loved that car."

Both boys are fighting back tears at this point. The photo of a young Mary and her Mediterranean blue Camaro with white racing stripes takes their collective breath away.

"Where did you get this?" Sam's voice is incredulous as he swallows hard.

"An old friend of your Mom's gave it to me. Your brother and I both thought you should have it to go with the car," John replies quietly. "I'm just sorry it's not the actual one from the picture."

None of them can speak for a moment, too fragile from the flood of memories engulfing them. Dean recovers first, because he has to, and he brushes the wetness from his eyes and claps his hands.

"Alright, that's enough of the caring and sharing. C'mon, man, let's take her for a ride. Wait until you see the inside, Sammy. I swear this girl is cherry!"

Sam smiles again, fondly indulgent of his brother's ability to turn his moods on and off. He nods and eagerly heads to the driver's side, clutching the photo in his hand.

They all pile in the car. Sam behind the wheel, grinning like a fool, with John riding shotgun, and Dean folded up in the back. Sam looks at his brother in the rear view mirror and makes a bittersweet observation that this is probably the first time in a decade that Dean has been in the back seat of a car when he wasn't either bleeding out or having sex.

His brother smiles at him and winks, and Sam blushes at the implication that its time he finds a girl for some backseat action of his own.

Sam reverently wedges the photo onto the instrument panel, kissing the fingers of his right hand and gently placing them near his mother's cheek. Under his father's watchful gaze, he starts the powerful engine, and appreciates the throaty purr. Growing up in the Impala has given him a taste for a classic beauty.

They spend almost two hours just driving around until both boys are starving. With Mom's photo in the car with them, it's as close to a family road trip as Sam has ever had. When he pulls into the driveway of the little house, his heart is bursting with love for his family, and he feels the slightest grip on his plans to leave them after graduation start to slip away.

It's as pleasing, as it is frightening.


	10. January 2001

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammy starts having second thoughts

Her name is Cherry.

Sam doesn't care if it sounds ridiculous, and he's certainly not going to take any shit about it from the brother who has christened his own car Baby.

After spending years mocking Dean's decidedly unhealthy and slightly pornographic boy/car love with the Impala, he realizes that he has been an ass. That there is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling a genuine adoration and territorial protection over something as beautiful as a classic Chevy.

He gets it now, why his brother would sooner lose a finger on his gun hand than let anyone other than his immediate family get behind the wheel of the Impala. Even Sam and John aren't allowed except under the most singular of circumstances.

Parked in the lot at Holy Rosary, Sam squints with beady, distrusting eyes at anyone that attempts to even come near his Camaro without a specific invite, and only a handful of his closest friends are actually permitted the grand privilege of riding in the passenger seats.

Technically, she belongs to his father.

Sam is still a minor, so the title and registration to her is in John's name, and his dad is the one that carries and pays for the insurance. That's okay with Sam, because the title to the Impala isn't solely in Dean's name either. It's held jointly by John and Dean, and is insured by John as well.

As adult as his big brother is, Dean is still only twenty-one, and when John gave his firstborn the keys, it was with the understanding that legal ownership would be shared until Dean was twenty-five and car insurance wouldn't be a prohibitively unaffordable fortune.

The Winchesters don't have a lot of disposable cash and expenses need to be kept at a minimum, and while their little family bends a lot of laws as part of their family business, the vehicles are always kept clean and perfectly legit. John has been lucky insofar that he's never seen serious enough identity trouble to change that fact.

Regardless of the legalities, Cherry belongs to Sam.

She's the first thing of material substance that Sam has ever had of his own. The first time he has a possession of any real value that he is not expected to share with anyone else. Dean may be the benchmark for the overwhelmingly vast majority of Winchester boy firsts, but he didn't have a car at seventeen.

Then again, Dean didn't have a big brother to build him one either, and Sam's heart hurts for everything that his brother never had in life.

Cherry's keys came with Mom's photo, and that little fact is still blowing Sam's mind, and the addition of House Rules #31 to #36.

The majority of Sam's Christmas vacation was spent either in the driver's seat with Dad or Dean riding shotgun and giving him excruciatingly detailed lessons on winter road safety, and considering that Sam was just in an accident he can't really blame them, or in the closed bay at Uncle Bobby's garage being dragged through a million drudging instructions in basic automotive repair.

Big brother was determined that Sam be able to handle her no matter what problem arose.

Sam was expected to treat her with respect at all times, maintain her in meticulous condition, and never, ever take any unnecessary risks. Passengers were cleared in advance of any car rides, Dean was the final authority on when, and if, Sam could drive her in less than perfect weather, and both father and brother reserved the right to take her keys from him at their discretion if he wasn't being responsible enough.

Dean would pay to fill her tank once a week, but any other routine expense was Sam's alone.

Sam accepted the restrictions without hesitation, already hopelessly in love with her sleek lines and shiny chrome accessories. The seats that made him feel like a race car driver, and the sportier style that made her look like the Impala's naughty little sister.

While the Impala's purring engine had been the lullaby of his childhood, and could still rock him to sleep faster than a glass of warm milk or whatever emergency pain pill they managed to score, Cherry's sultry growl was pure and unadulterated sin.

He still couldn't believe that his brother, and especially his father, had taken the time to build him a car. It's not that he doesn't know that they love him.

Of course he knows that.

Sam can't explain, even to himself, why such a large gesture on their part is so far out of the realm of their normal that he's still having a hard time wrapping his melon around it. Their family doesn't do big gestures, even for each other. Dad also doesn't waste time he could be hunting by doing massive and time consuming automotive projects.

They are duty and sacrifice. Messy, dangerous hunts and motel room patch jobs. Gruff affection and little brother beat downs. Greasy diner food and vending machines. They do what they do, and they shut up about it.

He should have known that something was up.

That morning, after John had taken Sam up to his room for their talk, Dad had pulled him into a one armed hug when they were finished while Sam collected himself, because if there was one thing you could say about John Winchester, it was that he was never stingy about giving affection to a punished boy.

If you fucked up, it was guaranteed that Dad would yell until your ears bled and then whip your ass good and proper, but then it was over and forgiven. The brothers were never left with the impression that their father was holding a grudge.

Dad had held him tight, with Sam sniffling into his father's shoulder, deep rumbling whispered words of comfort in his ear. Sam hated how needy he always felt afterwards, no matter how much he had grown. Sore and miserable, and all of five years old, and it wasn't fair that his father's gravelly warm voice could calm the tempest of chaos in his mind, like Sam was still a young child in his arms.

How his father's steady and strong presence never failed to help Sam regain his center of gravity, when his fluctuating range of emotions just had him spinning in a frenzy of confusion and pain. For all of their frequent clashes and heated word conflicts, John's shoulder remained the primary zone of safety and security for his youngest son.

When Sam was calm, Dad had told him that he was grounded for a month, and Sam had accepted it without a word of complaint, even though the duration was unusually excessive.

Still feeling horribly guilty, ready and willing to take whatever got dished out at him, and then some, and then some more besides. After hurting his brother so badly, nothing Dad said or did to him would have been remotely enough in Sam's mind. Not nearly enough to encompass all of the penance he owed for this most egregious of sins.

Later, at dinner, Dad had informed Dean about Sam's restrictions, because big brother would be the one enforcing them, and Dean had uncharacteristically asked their Dad to make it just until Christmas Day, which had only been a little more than two weeks away at the time. Sam had assured his brother that he was okay with it, but Dean simply ignored him.

Dad and Dean seemed to have a wordless conversation between them for a moment, their father's mouth pursed in an irritated frown over his firstborn's insubordinate presumption, but then Dad had finally agreed and backed down, for the first time ever.

Sam should have known then.

Because Dean would rather take on three wendigos single-handedly, with a lamia chaser, than question Dad's parenting decisions, but he also wouldn't be cruel enough to give Sam a car for Christmas that he wasn't allowed to drive that day either and, apparently, neither was Dad.

Quite a few of the students at Holy Rosary came from well-to-do families, and the student parking lot had its share of glossy, pricey vehicles. That first morning back after vacation, many heads turned with jealousy to see the blue beauty turn in, and the adorably messy haired Sam Winchester behind the wheel.

Clearly, the Winchester brothers not only shared ridiculously good looks, they also shared a fondness for sexy, classic muscle cars, and there might have been more than a little overt swooning going on.

Contrary to Sam's belief at the time, the resulting fallout of that disastrous party did little to affect his overall popularity. Having been a valued member of the soccer team, the friends he had made there didn't desert him out of some peer pressure induced loyalty to Trenton's posse. The entirety of the smart kids clique were offended directly on his behalf as well, and they closed ranks around him, metaphorically sheltering him like a baby bird with a broken wing.

In fact, considering how aggressively Trenton and the football players were trying to shove Kristin's unfaithfulness in his face out of sheer unearned malice, there were more students who sided with the always sweet and helpful Sam over the boorish behavior of jocks that had been generally cruel to anyone they didn't feel worthy of their condescension or notice.

Dean's advice on how to act in school afterwards had been invaluable.

That snowy day they spent together watching movies and mending their brotherhood, Sam had desperately needed reassurances and guidance from the big brother that had helped him navigate through all of the hurts and heartaches in his life.

Soon after the ending credits for Beastmaster 2, Dad had left to borrow a few books from Uncle Bobby and pick up Chinese food for the boys. Once his truck had cleared the driveway, Sam turned off the television and confessed everything about what had happened in the Harris house before he went on the Jack bender, as well as the couple of hard days at Holy Rosary afterwards.

Dean had listened, with mounting concern and wrath, while Sam bared his soul over the betrayal, the tidal wave of anger and pain he had felt afterwards, and the uncertainty he now felt about his friends and his place at school. It hadn't been easy for the terminally shy Sam to talk about it, the shame of his own embarrassment and his general insecurity on display in front of the brother who had always confidently navigated the complexities of teen drama.

Uneasily, he watched as Dean's face vacillated between the soft and adoring look of It's okay, Sammy. Don't you worry. Big Brother's gonna fix this and the cold blooded killer stare of I'm gonna rip their fucking lungs out!

Dean had taken him by the chin, giving Sam his best no nonsense glare.

"You don't ever let them see you bleed, Sammy. Never."

Sam knows this. Has always been trained to keep his emotions in check.

"You show 'em that they wounded you? It only gives them satisfaction. You keep your game face on, kiddo. You smile at them with your mouth, and tell them to fuck off with your eyes. You hear me?"

And Sam had stared up at him, with all of the hero worship on his face that he had felt for his big brother since childhood, because Dean was a goof and a jerk sometimes, but he loved Sam and had never steered him wrong.

"Okay, Dean."

Then Dean had smiled. The cocky, sure grin of someone plotting and scheming and loving it.

"They'll get theirs, little brother. I promise you."

Dean went on to assure Sam that he had good friends at school. That the kids he played soccer with and studied with, and did a million other after school activities with, were not going to think less of him for getting mixed up with some bullying punks, and that Sam could do better than a faithless girl who easily gave her body instead of her heart.

Then he had brushed his hand over the top of Sam's tousled bedhead, just hard enough that he could claim it wasn't at all girly, even though it totally had been, and without another word, he went into the kitchen.

A few moments later, he returned with a plate containing Sam's favorite childhood comfort food of a peanut butter and banana sandwich. He handed Sam the plate and grabbed the video bag again, rummaging around until he pulled out a tape of Red Sonja. He pushed it into the VCR, turned it on, and returned to the couch, lifting Sam's blanketed feet and laying them on his own lap while the movie started.

Sam ate his sandwich, with all of its soft, sugary goodness, and relaxed to the movie, and Dean had spent the next thirty minutes furiously texting.

Of course Dean had been right.

When Sam had gone into school the next day, everything Dean had said was true. He had plastered a smile on his face, taking pains to greet Trenton, Smith and their buddies with a casual indifference. When Kristin had finally summoned up the courage to approach him, he had simply laughed and walked away.

Truly it had made him feel better, especially when he could see their frustration over his lack of reaction.

On the first day of the new semester, Sam had proudly exited from his vehicular beauty, trying to be cool, but hopelessly blushing from the admiring stares. He strode with purpose, a happy lightness in his step, having just enjoyed the best Christmas ever and raring to go with his new classes.

There was an unusually large number of students milling around the hallway when he walked in, and they all seemed to be buzzing about something and throwing looks in his direction which started to make him uneasy.

Feeling self conscious, he headed further into the building and was greeted with the chaotic sight of staff members frantically pulling down photos that seemed to be plastered wall-to-wall on every surface of the main hall.

Someone had pushed one in his hands and his eyes widened in shock when he saw a picture of Kristin and Smith in a very compromising position.

The photos were everywhere.

The entire hallway looked like several copy machines had exploded, and there was a cacophony of jeers and catcalls and unabashed laughter as the teachers and support staff ran around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to minimize the damage.

Momentarily stunned, Sam had examined the photo carefully, and found himself feeling a mixture of horror and amusement as he recognized the work of one of Caleb's associates who handled a lot of the forgery and photography needs for hunters. He didn't even want to know how they managed to fake this image.

He schooled his features, not wanting to give any indication that he was somehow complicit in this mess, acting just as surprised as the others. When the students started finding copies hanging in their lockers as well, Sam knew without a doubt that Dean had been responsible for that little detail.

His brother would have wanted to make sure that everyone got a chance to see it.

Sam recalled Dean's less than enthusiastic participation in that morning's five mile run. No wonder he had been exhausted. Sam didn't have a doubt in his mind that his brother was responsible for this. Dean's creativity, especially when getting revenge on someone that hurt Sam, was boundless.

The only questions were how many of their hunter friends had stealthily broken into Sam's school and spent the night redecorating, and exactly how did his brother crack all of the locker combos.

Trenton didn't take kindly to seeing photos of his best friend and recently reunited girlfriend being intimate splashed around the entire school. He also didn't believe Smith's denials either, since the other boy had often made leering advances towards Kristin that he always laughed off as a joke.

Before the first bell even rang, the two of them were beating the snot out of each other in a brawl that ran the length of the main hallway and into one of the science labs where Sam's physics teacher tried to pull them apart and got a broken nose for his trouble.

By the time the hulking boys were pulled apart, they were bruised and bloody and the proud new owners of three conduct marks each for the damage they had wrought, and Kristin had been escorted out of the school in hysterical tears. Sam knew he should feel bad for her, but he was having a hard time drumming up the sympathy.

Later, at home, Sam casually mentioned what had happened to his brother. Dean reacted with minimal interest, his face the politely casual mask he wore when out in the field with Dad on a job. The only word out of his mouth being,

"Huh."

Then he had gone back to assembling a tuna noodle casserole for dinner without mentioning it again. Sam had smiled to himself and let it go, but when he got up to get ready for bed, he leaned in the doorway of the living room while Dean watched TV.

"Thanks."

Dean looked up at him, took a relaxed sip of his beer, and shrugged.

"Don't know what you're talking about. Just sounds like some dicks got what was coming to 'em, s'all."

Then he winked.

Sam laughed, shaking his head, and wished his brother goodnight, but he went to sleep that night with the comforting thought of how Dean always had his back when he needed him.

Kristin didn't come back to school the next day, and when Trenton and Smith were pulled from their last period class for their paddle date in the principal's office, Sam couldn't keep the smirk off of his face.

He wasn't a cruel person, and he didn't take pleasure in the misfortune of others.

But the small part of him that still grimaced when recalling how Dad's belt had striped his ass like an ironically festive Christmas candy cane, and left him cursing the name Jack Daniels every time he had to sit down for a full two days afterwards, was feeling pretty smug at the moment.

/

It was almost a ten hour drive from Jim's place in Blue Earth to the Campbell family compound in Lansing.

As much as John wasn't looking forward to meeting up with unknown members of his Mary's extended family, who were hunters to boot, he knew that it had to be done.

There were too many questions that needed answering. Too many unknown variables that needed solutions, and John was more concerned about the safety of his children than any discomfort he might feel about coming up close and personal with the people that his beloved late wife had wanted nothing to do with at the time of her death.

John had never met Robert Campbell, Samuel's younger brother.

He had been the one that insisted on putting up a gravestone for Mary after her death, against John's wishes. The one on the other end of terse and increasingly belligerent phone calls that had ended with harsh words, insults and threats. Mary's remains were not at rest there. The fire had been supernatural in origin, and there had been absolutely nothing left of her to bury.

Having seen so much death and destruction in his life, John didn't need a place marker for his wife. He carried her in his heart and in his mind every minute of every day. There was no need for an empty plot for him to go and visit her. She never left him.

He wasn't sure what kind of reception he was going to receive.

Once he had learned the truth about Mary's past, he embarked on the new mission of tracking down her relatives, and found that locating them was significantly easier than he anticipated. Almost as if they wanted him to find them, and that little thought got his suspicions and defenses up even more than they already had been.

With each passing mile, he was beginning to feel that it was more and more likely that he was walking directly into a trap.

It's been two weeks since he left the boys and went radio silent. He wanted to be able to tell them where he was, but it was too dangerous to let them in on his findings just yet. As much as they had grown, and as well as he had raised them right and taught them to be strong, they were still so young.

Still boys, not yet full grown into men.

God, Dean would kill him if John ever said that to his face. Dean, who at almost twenty-two was already two years older than John had been when he returned from the war. Who had been taking on monsters, that would make hardened Marines shit themselves in terror, since he was barely out of puberty.

Didn't matter to John.

As long as John was alive, Dean would be his boy. His child. John had trained him, drilled every single skill he could think of into his son since handing Dean his first gun at age six. Had put him in charge of his little brother, and left them alone and scared while their father went out and hunted down anything that could hurt them.

It still didn't mean that his oldest was fully grown. Not in John's mind anyway, and he would continue to put a wall of silence and distance between them to keep his boy from jumping into this fight, as Dean surely would if he knew what John now knew himself. Still protect his kid from throwing himself into a battle that John had no idea yet how to win.

Dean had been expecting his middle of the night exit. Had known that the brief interlude of their holiday was only temporary, even though he said nothing. Simply taking it for what it was, and deriving whatever comfort and enjoyment he could from those few fleeting days of Christmas-y, snowy bucolic afternoons and relaxed, stress-free evenings, when they could just pretend they were a regular family for once.

Just for a little while.

Always on alert, and already sitting up in his bed expectantly, when John made his way into his sons' bedrooms to say goodbye. Dean hadn't questioned it. Never did, good boy that he was. Simply sat in his bed, shoulders stiff and at attention, even in his sleep clothes, moonlight highlighting the smattering of childish freckles on his nose. He took his father's orders and a wad of cash for expenses without a word of reproach for the abrupt departure.

Duty, responsibility and obedience personified, as always, with the barest of pinches in his eyes over the news that John would be out of contact for the indefinite future, and only a warm pat on the shoulder from his father to give him comfort.

It had been hard to leave Sammy too.

John's little boy, now an inch taller than his father, and still growing. Who had been happy and easy going for the first time in years around John. Gone was the moody, rebellious teenager, all spitfire and bucking orders just because. Stubborn and argumentative and as big a pain in the ass as John had ever been. In his place was a smiling, easy to please kid.

Joking, laughing and looking at John with adoration he hadn't seen in his youngest son's eyes in over a decade, before a multitude of disappoints, and the crippling loss of faith in his father.

That last night when John had gone into Sam's room, and had to say goodbye to sleep tousled hair, and wide hazel eyes blinking owlishly at him, and wordlessly begging his dad to just stay. To not go away this time, leaving them alone and afraid that they may never see him again, and goddamn it, John had wanted to stay. Wanted to smooth his hand over Sammy's floppy curls and lull his boy back to sleep with hopeful, sunny promises of tomorrow, and the next day and the next.

Would have given anything to just stay in that warm cozy house with his boys and put down his sword of vengeance and fucking be there for his kids while they were still young enough to want him around. To start trying to make up for all that they lost and missed out on. Things he was too busy and obsessed and half out of his mind with grief to give them.

He wanted that more than anything.

Didn't mean he still hadn't needed to go.

To climb into his frozen truck in the dark of night, leaving his boys behind, to fend for themselves while their father headed out into the uncertainty of a journey to uncover the secrets of the origin of all the pain and unhappiness and loss in their lives.

How would he ever be able to tell his boys that their mother and her family had been hunters? Could they ever understand that? John couldn't understand it himself, so how would he explain it to his sons?

Tell his children that their entire lives had been built on a lie? That the mother they thought they knew had actually had deep, dark secrets, and that she might have been the one responsible for drawing real evil to their happy home. It was exactly what John had been afraid of all of these years that he was doing himself.

Why he kept his boys moving, hidden and on lock down, because you never knew what might be following you home to your kids, when you lived your life in the shadows, and made enemies of things that didn't understand concepts like decency and mercy. Would not hesitate to gain their revenge on a hunter by taking from him that which he held most dear.

John had spent the last seventeen years feeling like he was one step ahead of disaster. On the edge of a razor sharp knife. Always on the run, looking over his shoulder and gripping a son with each hand as he white knuckled his way through life. An endless maze of possibilities and uncertainties and wild guesses, trying to figure it all out while keeping them safe.

He roused himself from his troubling thoughts long enough to consult his map and confirm that the road veering off to the right in the distance was the one he needed to take. The sun had already set, and the Sierra's headlights were reflecting scattered snowflakes that swirled in the air as he pushed forward. Every minute took him closer, and as they ticked by, he felt his hands tensing on the wheel of the truck.

Soon enough he could make out the sight of the chain link fence that ran the perimeter of the compound. The fence was tall, with a heavy coils of razor sharp barbed wire lining the top, leaving no doubt that visitors were actively discouraged from approaching. The compound itself was huge if the fence was any indication. John counted off nearly half a klick in length before he reached the entry gate.

John had never seen anything like the armed manpower at the entry. Clearly the Campbells were some paranoid twitchy bastards. No less than a dozen men and women all spread around the gate in positions of offensive advantage. Armed to the teeth with a variety of heavy weapons that made the guard posts John had seen in the DMZ look like fucking Sunday tea parties.

He pulled up as near as he dared, hyper aware of the proximity of the Taurus hidden in his lap and the Ruger just peeking out between his coat and his left pants pocket. Safeties off and ready to do business, and John fast enough and talented enough to shoot both simultaneously, straight and true in different directions if the situation called for it.

He lowered the driver's side window, and silently submitted to their tests, as he knew would be required. One of the guards passed him a flask with salted holy water, and John downed it, pushing back the distrust he felt from having to drink something given to him by complete strangers. It went against every grain he had in him.

A dark haired young man, who couldn't be any older than his Dean, proceeded to make a rather enthusiastic cut on John's forearm with a silver knife, and John felt a small twinge of satisfaction when his own superior intimidating glare forced the little asshole to look away. John was tempted for a minute to smack the attitude right off the kid's face, but restrained himself, and when his examiners were finally satisfied, John was waved through.

The main building was actually a series of corrugated metal structures, all haphazardly laid out and welded together. In the background he could hear the barking of penned up dogs and the steady buzz of loud conversations and machinery. He exited his truck, taking as many weapons as he could reasonably hide on his person. Knew that he would most likely be relieved of some, but John was a clever bastard, and they would never find them all without getting a bullet to the head.

John was willing to go on a little faith here, but he hadn't survived this long in the The Life by being stupid.

He was pointed in a general direction, and wasn't surprised to see that everyone was obviously informed of exactly who he was. The entire place gave off a cult vibe, and if this was how the family had always been, it was no wonder that Mary wanted out.

Then he remembered the perfectly normal house that the Campbells lived in in Lawrence, and wondered if there were varying degrees of dedication between the different branches.

As he walked through the first two rooms, there was a general sense of worker bee atmosphere surrounding the various men, women and children gathered around the tables making ammo, melting silver, preparing gallons of holy water and cleaning weapons.

Place looked more decked out with firepower than the entirety of Echo-Two-One.

At the end of the last hallway, he was pointed to a door on the left by a sentry that looked at John like he wanted to slit his throat and had a decidedly unfortunate aversion to personal hygiene. John nodded at him and glared until the man moved out his way, and then headed into the office.

Robert Campbell had to have been close to seventy years old at this point by John's rough estimate, considering that John himself was pushing forty-seven. You couldn't really tell by looking at the older man. He was tall. Very tall, and John had a passing idle thought that maybe it was this branch of Mary's family that was the genetic marker for the rapid growth in his Sammy.

Robert shared his older brother's male pattern baldness, and broad stance, and for someone in advancing years, John wasn't so sure he would want to tangle with the man.

It wasn't much of an office. More like a work shop made of metal shelving, charts and graphs spread out on the makeshift walls. Similar to how John laid out his own research once he was settled somewhere. Typical hunter work space. Robert was finishing up some notations on one of the graphs and he beckoned John closer, holding out a hand in greeting.

"John. It's good to see you."

"Wish I could say the same." John wasn't quite ready to make peace yet, and he kept his hands to his sides.

"Now, don't be like that. There's no need for any antagonism here. We're on the same side."

"Yeah, Somehow I doubt that," John snorted, and shook his head. The memories of those phone calls still bitter in his mind.

"We can help, John," Robert smiled, and attempted to be pleasant. Offering John a seat in front of the desk.

"Yeah? I can help too," John bit out, as he sat. "That kid manning your gate's got a real attitude. Gonna get him killed someday, he's not careful."

Robert chuckled, shaking his head in weary acceptance.

"That's Christian. My cousin Ed's boy. Let's just say that Christian took to some aspects of hunting a little more aggressively than others."

While all this caring and sharing was fun, John wasn't here to shoot the shit with a man he disliked.

"So why do you think I need your help, exactly?"

Robert frowned at the deviation from pleasantries, and John could see the older man struggling to maintain his temper. It took a moment, and then he pasted the kindly grandpa look back on.

"We've been watching you. You and your boys."

Aaannnd, that was exactly the wrong thing to say, rocketing John to his feet and prompting him to pull his Taurus.

"You stay the fuck away from my boys, you hear me? Unless you want my gun up your ass, and not in the fun way, either."

Robert stared at the gun pointed at him and didn't even blink. He shook his head and smiled indulgently, like John was a misbehaving child that required patience.

"I like you, John. It's too bad my brother didn't get to know the real you. He would have liked you too."

"Yeah, it's a real damn shame," John snapped, not lowering his piece. "Why don't we cut the bullshit, and get down to it."

"John, please lower your gun," Robert asked politely, slightly indicating that the younger man look down.

John did, keeping a wary peripheral on Robert, and inwardly swore when he caught sight of the red laser dot aimed directly over his heart. He gritted his teeth and lowered the Taurus as the dot disappeared.

"Now there's that famous charm I've heard so much about," Robert continued conversationally. "Not even a moment of polite conversation between family?"

"You're not family."

"That's where you're wrong. Mary was my niece. And your boys are my brother's grandsons. We are most definitely family."

"This was a mistake," John said quietly, turning around to leave.

"John, don't let that temper of yours get in the way of the information you want," Robert called out to halt his departure. "You know as well as I do that you wouldn't have come here if you had another choice."

John hesitated in the door, took a deep breath, thought about his boys and turned back around.

"Fine. Let's hear it."

When Robert indicated the chair again, John leveled a glare at the man, but he sat down anyway, wondering if he would need the support if what he was going to hear was really that life shattering.

"The day before Samuel died, he called me. The craziest story I ever heard. Mary brought some young hunter home to dinner with her. Had the strangest story."

"And?"

"Said he was hunting a demon. Had a journal full of information on it's victims."

Robert had John at the word demon, but he held his mask of indifference.

"This supposed to impress me? I have journal too."

"Future victims," Robert stressed for emphasis. "Apparently Daddy was psychic. Knew who was gonna deal before it happened."

"A psychic demon hunter," John was now laughing. "Really. Huh. That's funny. I don't remember Samuel being much of a drinker."

"Yeah, I laughed it off too," Robert snapped, losing his battle with civility. "Until the part where my brother and his wife were killed the next day. Wasn't so funny after that."

"Killed?" John shook his head in confusion.

"You're a hunter, John. Never occurred to you that a husband and wife dying like that was more than a little suspicious?"

"Not really," he snapped. Painful memories swirling at the surface. "My parents died together."

The tone in the response hit it's mark and Robert's face softened.

"Yes, I forgot. My apologies. But Samuel and Deanna were murdered."

"I thought Samuel had a heart attack?"

"Not many heart attacks are caused by a knife ripping open your guts and making you bleed out," Robert chuckled humorlessly. "And for the record, Deanna's neck was broken, but it wasn't from any fall."

Shaking his head, John felt like he'd just stumbled upon an entire truckload of crazy.

"Did Mary know?"

"Yes, she did. She's the one that called me to come and make the arrangements. We had enough connections to have the deaths ruled accidental."

"So that's why no public funeral," John replied quietly, realization dawning.

"Samuel and Deanna were hunters, John. You know how that goes."

And he did. He really did. His interest was more than piqued now.

"So what about this psychic demon hunter?"

"I don't know what happened to him," Robert responded, eyes troubled. "He disappeared right after Samuel died. We've been looking for someone that would fit his profile for years, but nothing."

John accepted it, having the same problem. "And the demon?"

"That's where it gets even stranger. Samuel said it was there making deals in the towns around Lawrence."

John's face snapped up, alert and insistent. "Crossroads demon?"

"You would think so, but apparently this particular demon had one trait that I hadn't heard of before. Haven't heard of it since, either."

"Oh, yeah. What's that?" he sneered. "He offer a lifetime supply of Rice-A-Roni with every deal?"

"No, although that's clever," Robert answered sarcastically. "No. His eyes weren't red or black. They were yellow."

"Yellow? What the fuck does that mean?"

Yellow was a new piece on the board. None of his contacts had ever mentioned yellow eyed demons.

"I don't know. We've been trying to track down information for the past twenty-seven years, and no luck. Nothing in the lore anywhere, and no demon we've caught will talk about it."

"So what does this have to do with Mary, or my boys." John was getting tired of the lack of point.

Robert gave him an exasperated look "John. You're a smart man. Do the math. Never occur to you that Mary died ten years after her parents?"

"You're insane," John snapped, jumping back to his feet. "Are you trying to tell me you think Mary, my Mary, made a deal? You're fucking out of your mind."

"I don't want to believe it either, John," Robert placated, holding up his hands. "I promise you. I loved Mary like she was my own. The idea of her making a deal turns my blood cold. But the facts add up."

"They do, huh?" John shook his head, temper flaring. "And just exactly what do think she made a deal for? She lost both her parents that day. Don't you think if she was signing up for the hellfire rumba she woulda wanted something for it?"

"I don't know what she would have bargained for," Robert replied plaintively. "I truly don't. Samuel said the demon wasn't gunning for souls, just permission."

"Permission for what?"

"I don't know. Samuel didn't know either. Just permission, whatever that means."

John was feeling a wave of nausea rise up into his throat. He wanted to dismiss this whole insane line of thought, but the hardened hunter in him was screaming at him to look at the facts in front of him.

"And you really think it's possible Mary made one."

"I think it's more than possible. Why else do you think I fought you so hard to have a resting place for her?"

"What good did that do?" John barked. "There wasn't anything left to bury."

Robert took a deep breath and grabbed a water bottle on his desk and swallowed a large gulp. He was feeling very old at the moment.

"Samuel kept a lock of her hair in his journal. I buried that. We're hunters going back generations, John. I know a trick or two," he added, seeing the younger man's disbelief.

"I buried her hair in consecrated ground and did a few rituals. It wouldn't save her from damnation if that was where she was headed, but if this demon wasn't giving tongue for souls, I took a chance that it would help her find peace."

John felt himself falling boneless back into his chair, head aching monstrously as he swallowed a thick lump in his throat that was holding back the crest of bile.

"Thank you for that," he muttered quietly. Sincere.

"Like I said, John. We're family," Robert said gently, seeing the lines of pain on the younger man's face in excruciating detail.

So why didn't you tell me about Mary hunting during those phone calls?"

"She begged me not to," Robert answered simply. "She wanted out, and I respected that. She lost her parents to the life, and I couldn't blame her. I helped her tie up a few loose ends with a hunt here and there, but as far as I knew, she stopped sometime after Dean was born."

And John knew that. Maybe even then, he knew that.

"And after she…?"

"I wasn't going to break my word then either," Robert admitted. "No one saw you becoming a hunter, John. I'll be honest and say flat out that I never saw that one coming."

"Mighta been easier if I'd known what the fuck I was looking for." And there was more than a touch of bitterness in the younger man's voice.

"My brother's baby girl was dead, and the only thing she asked was that you never find out about her past. That her family didn't know the things she'd done."

Robert wasn't going to apologize for his actions, then or now. They were what they were.

"Didn't mean we didn't help. Like I said, we've been watching. Made sure you were steered towards the right connections. Did what we could to clean up some of the messes you made early on."

"What?"

"Think about it, John," Robert said obviously. "Didn't you ever wonder why some of your earliest jobs never got traced back to you? You're a good hunter. Nowadays, probably one of the best in the game. But everyone has to learn the hard way. We just made sure that your rookie mistakes got taken care of."

It was too much. All too much, and John closed his eyes as a tornado of crippling mental blows swirled around his mind. Robert got up from his chair and opened one of the metal filing cabinets and withdrew a bottle of Johnny Walker Black and grabbed two glasses.

There was so much more to tell. He had a feeling that this was going to be a long night.

/

There was a resonating sound of finality that had to have been a product of his overactive imagination as Sam closed the slot of the post office drop box. Now beyond his reach, where his second guesses and nerves could no longer stop their journey, three completed college applications were officially on their way.

In light of his school year detente with his father, arguably fragile, but improving, and the swift rebuilding of close bridges with his brother since their fallout and reunion a few weeks earlier, his resolve to strike out on his own had been wavering rather precariously.

Dad was different these days.

Over the Christmas holiday, Sam had seen a side of his father that the boys had only ever really caught glimpses of before. For one, John hadn't touched a drop of alcohol for the whole week he spent with them. Sam couldn't remember a holiday that hadn't ended with his father wasted and wrecked, snoring a whiskey soaked coma on the couch.

Then there was the complete and total absence of any discussion on hunting.

No messy piles of newspaper clippings and photos and handwritten notes spread over every surface. No stacks of lore books, or orders to Sam to copy notes from their endless, musty pages. No secretive phone calls and tight, pinched stares after them.

It was as if Dad had pressed pause on their usual activities, and it was as wonderful as it was disconcerting.

He talked to Sam about school, surprising both of his sons when disclosing a love for his own math and chemistry classes. Sam told him about how his PE teacher was more than subtly pressuring him to go out for basketball, his increasing height putting visions of school championships in the coach's eyes.

Dad had laughed and advised Sam to forget basketball and wait for spring. That baseball was the real sport, and then he proceeded to talk about how he was the captain of his own team, and the thrill of the game.

While the three of them repainted the living room, Dad had shared stories of renovation projects he had done on the house in Lawrence. How Dean's room originally had beautiful hardwood floors, but then had to be carpeted when John was painting on a ladder behind a closed door, and Mary, heavily pregnant and hormonal, had shoved it open and sent John and two gallons of paint sprawling everywhere.

Memories of his time at boot in San Diego, and the brothers-in-arms he found there. The beach and the warm California sun, and beautiful girls in the throes of the heady days of the sexual revolution.

The boys sat at their father's feet, in rapt fascination of previously untold tales, soaking up every scrap of information like sponges, and filing them away as precious possessions.

They watched spaghetti westerns and old war movies, and argued about who would win in a fight. John Wayne or Clint Eastwood? Dad made popcorn on the stove, and scolded them when they threw kernels at each other, right before he shoved a handful down Dean's back and a clump in Sam's hair.

They had an honest-to-God impromptu snowball fight after coming home from the grocery store, and Dad had made them his kitchen sink stew when the boys started sneezing. On New Year's Eve, he told them fond, wistful stories about their grandmother and step-grandfather. They watched the ball drop on TV, and Dad let Sam have a glass of champagne to celebrate at midnight.

Sam was woken up later that night, when Dad sat on his bed to say goodbye. In the semi-darkness, he looked up at his father's face. Dark, warm eyes that weren't stressed or angry, and a playful smile hidden in the neatly trimmed beard and mustache Dad grew every winter. For the first time in years, his father's imminent departure pained him, and with Dad's place at the kitchen table empty the next morning, the house suddenly felt just a tiny bit less like home.

Sam had always had a father, but for the first time, he really felt what it was like to have a Dad, and now that he knew what John was still capable of being, the idea of walking away and leaving that behind was beginning to sour in Sam's mind.

Not that he had changed his decision about fully embracing the life of a hunter.

That wasn't what he wanted, no matter how much he loved his family. By the same token, he was finding it increasingly difficult to imagine a life without them near.

When just a few months earlier, the idea of being on his own, away from the bloody injuries and pee-your-pants terror of The Life, was an intoxicating dream right within his grasp, now the concept of not being around close enough to cover their backs if things went south on a hunt scared him.

Sam found himself more than willing to compromise.

While the family had spent years crisscrossing the country on cases, and the boys were uprooted and moved from town to town with annoying frequency, they did usually stay at least a while in one place at a time because they needed to be in school enough that it didn't raise red flags.

Sam knew that their stays usually frustrated their father, since his focus on the hunt left him a little tunnel visioned on anything that wasn't directly related to it. It was different then. The brothers were children, and while Dad had left them on their own for weeks at a time on occasion, he always returned to them eventually.

Now that Dean was an adult, and Sam getting closer, John didn't need to keep watch. For that matter, Dean didn't need to either. Sam would be eighteen in May. Old enough to be on his own.

More than old enough.

Sam was going to go to college. Of that much, he was sure, but he was also sure that he wasn't going to go somewhere too far away either.

Since Sam started at Holy Rosary, his father had been taking hunts in the neighboring states so the boys could come and back him up if needed. Sam didn't see a reason why that had to change.

In fact, with his ability to schedule his course load so that he could have more days free during the week, and not just on the weekend, Dad could broaden his hunting radius even further. Even more so, Dad could just go where he wanted at any time, and Sam would be available to help with the ones in his driving range, and he was prepared to drive a lot if he needed to.

Dean could still be with Dad full time. As a legal adult, Sam could live on his own, just like every other college kid. Thanks to the two of them, he had his own wheels, and he could easily travel to them after classes and help out. It was a win-win.

He was even willing to go one step further.

Although he would prefer to go to a prestigious university, and his 4.0 GPA and near perfect SAT and ACT scores would almost surely guarantee that he could, he would settle for a school that made his father comfortable to keep the peace.

With that in mind, he planned on applying to Sioux Falls University and Minnesota State University. They were both smaller schools, and not very elite, but they did have the attraction of being close to Uncle Bobby and Pastor Jim.

Minnesota State University was roughly thirty miles from Pastor Jim's place in Blue Earth. Even if Dad wasn't willing to let Sam live on campus, and he probably wouldn't, he could still easily commute from the rectory if he had to.

Sioux Falls University was just a few miles from both the salvage yard and the rented house they were currently living in.

Best case scenario, Sam would persuade his father to let him keep renting the house and he could live there while attending classes. Dad and Dean would still have a base to come back to between hunts. The university was a private school, but Sam knew he could earn enough in scholarships and student loans to swing the tuition, rent and living expenses. The house was already well protected, and Sam was comfortable there.

Worst case scenario, Dad would insist on giving up the house, but Sam could still live with Uncle Bobby. That would be okay too, although the idea of having his own place was attractive to a boy yearning for freedom and independence.

This whole scheme would only work if John felt in control, because that was how their father operated. Sam knew that, no matter what plans he came up with, his dad would need to have the final say-so to keep them from butting heads and ruining any chance of coming through this without bloodshed.

Sam didn't want to actively pick a fight with his dad. Didn't want to wind up in a position where he would have to blatantly disobey him either, and create unnecessary turmoil. There had to be a middle ground somewhere, and Sam was determined to find it. Even if it came at the cost of his own lofty aspirations of the Ivy League.

A lifetime of being told by his brother that life would go smoother if Sam just did as he was told and didn't question their father had never been easy for the youngest Winchester to swallow down. It wasn't in his nature to be blindly obedient and unquestioningly subservient. Sam had always needed answers and reasons behind doing anything, and the fact that John wasn't big on giving either frustrated his younger son to the point of near constant rebellion.

Sam didn't want that relationship with his father anymore.

These past few months as a near civilian had opened Sam's eyes to the realities of normal life that had not ever really occurred to him before. Things like having a house and a life lived aboveboard didn't guarantee instantaneous happiness. That making friends and cultivating relationships could be just as painful as not having the chance to have them in the first place.

That his stern and unyielding father, obsessed and compulsively driven, would still take the time to painstakingly carve sigils for days to ensure Sam's safety, even though he wasn't happy about his boys living in the house where he was doing it. That John would live a little rougher on the road than he already did, just so Sam could go to a nice, safe school that cost money that the family didn't really have.

Or that Dad would drive out of his way to spend a few hours whenever he could to help build a car so that Sam could have something reminiscent of the mother that was too painful for John to talk about.

Then there was Sam's realization that his big brother, despite all of the constant teasing and smacking around that was the absolute purview of older brothers everywhere, loved Sam so much that he gave up the life of a full time hunter, the life that he needed like oxygen, without even blinking, just to give his snot nosed kid brother the chance to be normal for once.

Dean never complained about it. Not even once. Not when Sam was ungrateful and grumpy and unappreciative. When he whined about their training, and early curfews and ridiculous bedtimes, and was pissy about hunting on the weekends instead of doing things with his friends. Making faces at the dinners that Dean would put together for them without the benefit of ever having been shown how to cook by anyone, and figuring it all out on his own, like he always did.

Never mind considering those terrible, awful days last month when Sam had thrown every single sacrifice Dean had made for him back in his big brother's face and then crucified him on a hill of derision and judgment in an unimaginable tirade that would have irrevocably broken lesser bonds of brotherhood.

Only for him to come back to Sam, warm and constant and steady, like nothing had even happened. Offering unconditional love and forgiveness when Sam was unworthy of them, and unable to ever repay even a fraction of what Dean had given him an entire lifetime supply of.

For Dad, and especially for Dean, Sam could temper his own dreams.

It would take him four years to earn his degree. Four years is a long time to prove to his family that he was old enough and capable enough to spread his wings and leave the nest for law school. To put himself in a position where he could help them if there was legal trouble, and earn a legitimate living to help support them to make their journey easier and less dangerous.

He wouldn't be abandoning them. Not really. He would still meet up with them anywhere he could, anytime he could. Still have their backs, and be their research monkey via phone and text message when he couldn't be there in person.

He would defer to his father's orders and obey all his rules, like a good son, and a good soldier, even if they were strict and unreasonable and Sam was legally an adult. Because it would be a compromise between them, and Sam wouldn't rock the boat or pick a fight. Would do what he had to do, to make Dad okay with Sam still being somewhere out of his sight and a worry to distract him.

Sioux Falls University and Minnesota State University weren't sexy, as far as degrees go. They wouldn't open a lot of doors for him with the better law schools, but they would go a long way in making sure that none were closed between Sam and his family either, and that was what was more important.

They both offered degrees in Political Science, which is what Sam wanted, and he would study hard and earn top marks, and then ace his LSAT exam and still get to go wherever he wanted to go from there. It wasn't too much to ask.

That had been the plan anyway.

But then his academic adviser had called Sam into his office during his lunch period one day, and that entire plan, the one that Sam had given so much careful thought to, and made his peace with, flew directly out the door.

Mr. Hopkins had meant well.

The kind of man that took his responsibility in guiding the students under his charge very seriously. He pushed them, and encouraged them, and showed them possibilities that they hadn't even known existed. He fought for them, and championed their efforts and badgered admissions offices and financial aid officers until they were deaf from his aggressiveness and willing to give or do anything to get him to leave them alone.

Sam sat in his well appointed office and quietly endured the disappointment in Mr. Hopkins' voice as he discussed Sam's less than ambitious college selections. Surprised that the boy that worked so hard and lobbied so fiercely for letters of recommendation was planning on settling for schools that just about any senior with average grades could attend.

Mr. Hopkins was an alumnus of Stanford University.

His walls were dotted with finely framed diplomas and achievement awards. Photos of pristine, manicured buildings and grounds all blanketed in the warm sunlight of California. He talked to Sam of the superior caliber of academic offerings, and the impeccable credentials of the professors. The vastness of the library that surpassed any expectation that Sam could possibly dream of.

The tuition was high, but he could get Sam the right interviews for scholarships and need based financial aid. Sam had the qualifications. His application would be put on the right desks, and he could spend four happy years in the heart of top notch education with his expenses covered.

When Sam had balked, and politely shared his reservations about his father's anticipated lack of enthusiasm regarding his youngest son traipsing off to California on his own, Mr. Hopkins had assured the boy that no parent, however overly protective, would be anything less than over the moon with pride if Sam came home with a letter offering him a free ride to one of the best universities in the country.

And Sam had believed him, simply because, deep down, he wanted to.

That was why, as Sam walked away from the post office, there were three envelopes, and not just two.

/

For the past two hours, Dean has been tinkering with the motor for the second hand snow blower he bought off of their next door neighbor. Wrist deep in grease and surrounded by a semi-circle of worn parts, he begins to wonder if he should just chuck the whole thing in the trash and continue to shovel by hand.

But the very real concern over how many hours of his young life have already been spent clearing the four steps to the house, the drive-way, the short path to the sidewalk and, of course, the sidewalk itself, not to mention the landlady's house which is part of their rent, prods him to continue.

Let's face it. They live in freakin' South Dakota. It's winter.

Enough said.

The various parts are laid out on the coffee table in the living room, mocking him with their stubborn refusal to cooperate in any way. He doesn't understand it. He can put entire cars together from scratch, but a little piece of shit snow blower is driving him out of his mind. Clearly, there is something evil at work here, and for a moment he contemplates sprinkling it with holy water.

He takes another sip of beer, grits his teeth, pushes his sleeves up above his elbows and dives back in.

He absolutely refuses to let the stupid thing get the better of him.

In the kitchen, Sam is standing at the sink finishing the dinner dishes. Dean pauses a minute to smirk at the prissy blue rubber gloves on his brother's hands as he pulls plates from the rinse water and slots them in the dish drainer. He's seen Sam with ghoul guts and ectoplasm on his hands, but apparently his kid brother has a problem with spaghetti sauce and soap.

The sink is on the far wall of the kitchen, meaning that Sam has his back to his brother in the next room, but Dean knows the kid well enough to correctly guess that the boy is wearing his bitch face. The low volume grumbling assures it, even before he hears the distinctive splash of water that heralds the second attempt to scrub the pot that Dean burned the pasta in.

"Temper, temper, Sammy boy," he teases, taking his mind off of the frustration of being bested by a baby motor by poking the bear that is his broody sibling.

"Bite me, Dean."

"And, language, young man," Dean adds for good measure, ducking as Sam, with lightening speed and Winchester ingrained accuracy, whips a sodden towel at him. He balls up the towel and flings it back towards the counter where it intentionally splats next to the sink, never touching his brother.

Sam's formerly irritated hazel eyes relax and a small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, recognizing the distraction for what it was. He turns back around and resumes the gooey task, a quietly uttered jerk under his breath that is not so silent that it doesn't prompt its verbal twin bitch from the other room.

Dean and Sam have fallen back into their comfortable banter with an easiness that belies all of the hurt and harsh words that had been between them a few weeks ago. In true form, Dean has pushed them way down deep inside, probably to be filed for later consideration the next time he's feeling like shit about something, but for now he's just happy to have them on companionable terms again.

They are brothers after all, and even brothers that are as close as the two of them are bound to fight occasionally. Especially as Sam has inherited more than just his hair color and dimples from their father. He possesses John's temper in spades and also his father's determination to dig in his heels when he thinks he is right.

Fortunately, Dean loves his little brother just as much as he loves their Dad, and nothing either of them ever do will change that fact, or his unconditional willingness to forgive them and always give his all for them. Evidenced by Dean's creative redecoration of Sam's school.

Sam turns around slightly and sneaks a glance into the living room. Dean is quietly sitting on the couch, the guts of the prehistoric mechanical beast still splayed out in every direction. But his brother's face is calm and his eyes are dancing with humor, as if enjoying a private joke. With a surgeon's precision, he picks through the little pieces of metal arranged on the drop cloth, his left knee bopping along in tune with whatever classic rock song is playing in his head at the moment.

Sam lets a little chuckle escape and Dean's mouth smirks a bit more as he reaches for another screwdriver. He doesn't turn his head to meet Sam's stare. Just sits there and tinkers and the younger boy doesn't realize how long he has been watching until Dean speaks.

"That's right, Sammy. Drink in the awesomeness that is me."

Dean snickers cockily, and Sam knows that he is being teased again. He blushes a little at getting caught gawking and is thankfully saved by the tinny ring of the eighties style phone on the wall.

Dean laughs to himself, having just busted his little brother for the peeping tom act. Not that he minds, really. He misses the days when Sammy regularly looked at him like that.

When he was only a tiny thing, Sam watched him with that intense big-eyed wonder, as if Dean was his own personal superhero. Dean remembers the days of strutting around like a peacock, his own little chest puffed out proudly, as his baby brother hung on his every word and gesture. At one point, Dean could have told the little boy that he could lasso the moon for him, and Sammy would have believed him.

If he is honest with himself, he would have to admit how much he is still hurt by the words that his little brother threw at him during that whole debacle last month. But, he has never been particularly honest with anyone except for their father, and then with Sam once the cat was out of the bag about what John really did during his near constant "business trips".

He certainly has never extended the same courtesy with himself.

Especially when life in denial is so much less painful.

So he has fallen back into the comfort of light bantering and teasing with his rapidly growing sibling. His easy acquiescence provides the necessary fuel to keep their relationship humming along smoothly.

He knows that Sammy is sorry, truly sorry for what he said.

The kid had been walking on eggshells around him for weeks, taking extra pains to be helpful around the house, never complaining about Dad's training schedule or extra studies. Never complained about how strict his abbreviated grounding had been, or even the fact that Dean took his allowance away for a month in reparations for the court fine. Most of all, he had been practically tripping over his canoe-sized feet to show appreciation for anything that Dean did for him.

It's clearly overcompensation and they both know it. Dean just wonders if the remorse stems from his brother feeling bad about hurting him or more because a kink in their relationship threatens the borderline normal life that they have created here.

He doesn't allow himself to ponder on that particular distinction for very long.

It wouldn't matter anyway in the end. Regardless of any verbal daggers that Sam has thrown at him, Dean would never think to unbalance the carefully crafted life that he has created for them for these precious few months. He made his little brother a promise and, where his family is concerned, Dean always keeps his promises.

And because Dean is a truly awesome big brother, he even engineered some payback for those little asshats at school who were trying their best to make Sammy's life miserable and publicly humiliate him. Dean wasn't having any of that shit at all, and they had paid for it.

Because no one fucks with Dean Winchester's little brother and gets away with it.

As soon as Sam had given him the full puppy dog eyes and Dean heard the undercurrent of misery in the kid's voice, he had gone to work. Caleb took care of the recruiting details and the whole thing was carried out with military precision.

It wasn't quite as much as Dean wanted to do. If he had his way, both of those little asshole jocks would have found themselves staring down the barrel of Dean's pearl gripped Colt and getting the living shit kicked out of them in new and creative ways.

Dad put a stop to that line of thought really quickly, unfortunately.

That night, after fences were mended, and Sammy was sent to bed, Dad had seen the look in Dean's eyes while they shared a beer.

"Keep your hands off of those boys, Dean." John's eyes are steely, and he's not messing around here.

"C'mon, Dad. You can't tell me that they don't deserve it," Dean points out, as he sips from his bottle.

He can tell from the minute lapse in his dad's disapproving glare that John does in fact think that they deserve it, but admitting to that out loud makes him a bad adult and poor role model. Honestly, if this was a case where they were splitting town in a day or two, John might just be helping Dean shine up a matching pair of brass knuckles to exhibit his displeasure.

"Your brother can handle this himself, kiddo. You don't need to fight all of his battles for him."

"Sammy doesn't have the sheer awesome creativity to come up with revenge, Dad," Dean points out, cocking an eyebrow and grinning widely.

"He'll be fine," Dad assures him, pulling out his journal to make notes. "They're just kids, and you aren't going to lay one finger on them, or you and me are gonna dance, you hear me?"

That makes Dean spit his beer out, and John scowls at the dribbles of saliva mixed with El Sol that now dot the page he was working on.

"Dad," Dean protests, eyes wide. "C'mon. I'm a little old for that, don't you think?"

John grabs a napkin and mops up the mess, leveling a no nonsense glare at his firstborn.

"I think if you start beating up a couple of high school students, I'm going to treat you like one. You copy?"

"Yes, sir. Copy that. Loud and clear," he snaps out smartly, as his ass twinges with repressed memories.

His father has a look on his face that says Yeah, I'm probably just fucking with you, but do you really want to risk it?

And no, as a matter of fact, Dean doesn't.

John nods and tries to get back to his notes when Dean clears his throat.

"But, let's say, for argument's sake, that they just happen to experience something unfortunate in a completely non-violent kind of way," he hedges, averting his eyes when his father looks back up. "No harm, no foul, right?"

John hesitates, knowing how bad it is to encourage his oldest when the mood for mischief strikes, but he's still pretty unhappy about what Sammy's been through himself, so he sighs.

"I can't very well bust you for something I don't hear about, now can I?"

"No, sir," Dean replies, smirking behind his beer bottle. "Silence is golden, Dad. We all know that."

Tonight's easy verbal volley with Sam has lifted some of the ache from Dean's chest, his smile, as he fiddles with the motor, is genuine. When the phone rings, his heart stops for just a fraction of a second as it always does with incoming calls. Holding his breath, he hopes that their father is not in trouble somewhere while Dean sits in the warm living room playing happy family.

Only a handful of people have their landline number, which they have because the school requires it, and most of the others are not the kind to call just to shoot the breeze. So he watches as Sammy grabs the handset from the wall and answers it, trying not to detect the minuscule lilt of breathy fear that has also inserted itself in his brother's greeting.

"Hello?"

When he watches Sam become decidedly uncomfortable, he jumps to his feet, but then the kid scowls at him and waves him off, pointing at his own chest to let Dean know that the call is for him and it's not any sort of fresh hell that their damaged family will have to manage.

Dean raises an eyebrow, curious as to the identification of the party on the other end of the line, because everyone they really talk to has their cell numbers. An after school hours caller on the landline is a first.

"Hey Alex. What's up?"

Alex?

To the best of Dean's knowledge, they don't know an Alex. No hunter goes by that name and it's not as if they have any third cousins running around to touch base with. He mentally runs the list of boys in Sam's class and falls short there as well.

Curiouser and curiouser.

It's not that Dean is opposed to giving the little twerp any privacy. Hell, he wouldn't have wanted anyone breathing down his neck at that age. He just doesn't like any unknown quantities in their inner circle. He's makes it a point to know who Sam associates with and, with Dad's mandate on the terms of their stay here, Dean takes that responsibility very seriously.

But he decides not to press the issue just yet. There will be time to grill Sam after the call and, stubborn or not, he will talk. Dean sits back down and resumes his tinkering, keeping one ear on the side of the conversation that he can hear. He is already picking through proven methods of interrogating his little brother.

Sam has a particularly sensitive tickle spot below his left ribs and he folds like a cheap suit when big brother unleashes the spider fingers.

"Yeah, I heard about it. I..uh..don't think I'll be able to."

Pause.

"No. I..um..I can't. I...uh..spend time with my Dad then."

Dean throws his brother a quick glance. Sam smolders from the undue amount of eavesdropping and turns slightly, putting his back to his brother even as he starts to wrap himself in the extra long coiled phone cord. Watching the kid's tense bristling, Dean frowns, hoping that whoever this Alex is, they aren't trying to get Sam involved in something stupid or dangerous.

Dean's had enough of that for a while.

A routine interest in his little brother's affairs ratchets itself up a notch and now Dean is determined to get to the bottom of the conversation. Sam doesn't respond well to a machete approach to information gathering, so he plays it cool, leaning back into the couch cushion and casually sipping at his beer.

"Yeah, okay. See you later."

Sam unwinds himself from the phone cord and hangs up, moving back to the sink with a little more speed and determination than he normally exhibits towards finishing his chores. He picks up the discarded Brillo pad and starts to scrub at the burnt pot with a vengeance. Dean stares at him for a second and then downs the rest of the beer. He gets up from the couch and strolls into the kitchen, discarding the empty bottle into the paper carrier on the floor by the trashcan.

Sam works over the pot as if he has never seen anything so interesting, pointedly ignoring his brother standing two feet away from him as Dean opens the refrigerator door and peers inside as if he has all the time in the world.

Scrub Scrub Scrub

"Remind me to pick up eggs tomorrow. We're almost out," Dean says casually as he rifles through the shelves.

A short grunt from Sam is the only acknowledgment he gets, the frenzied scraping of the steel wool against metal grating on his nerves. He pulls out another beer and closes the door, flipping the cap off with the edge of his ring and turning to lean back against the counter top as he takes a sip.

Scrub Scrub Scrub

"So, who's Alex?"

A pause, lasting just a fraction of a second, betrays Sam's unease over the question, but he pushes past it and renews his efforts with a vengeance.

Scrub Scrub Scrub

"Just someone from school."

Dean frowns and shakes his head slightly at the vague answer. Sammy is acting far too nervous over the call for it to have been anything that innocent.

"What did he want?"

Sam turns towards him and scowls. "None of your business, Dean," he snaps.

At Dean's withering glare, he backs down and returns to the pot. Patience wearing thin, Dean waits another half a minute before pushing the issue.

"Sam," he growls in the voice that their father uses and which leaves no room for debate.

His little brother huffs, clearly annoyed that he has to explain himself, and Dean silently concedes that his father is right in that they have allowed Sam to become a little spoiled. At this point in the conversation with John, Dean would be spilling his guts about every detail of the phone conversation as well as confessing to the size of the porno stash underneath his bed.

Sam's teenager pride demands that he posture a bit more before caving, and he does so until the glare in his big brother's eyes threatens to blind him. He throws the pot back in the sink and crosses him arms, his whole body bristling with attitude.

"The drama club at my school is doing a winter production of Our Town. Alex called to ask me if I was going to try out for a part."

Dean raises an eyebrow in surprise. It's such an innocent vanilla answer that he can't help wondering if there is more than Sam is letting on about. A more discomforting question is whether or not the kid is flat out lying to him. Last month's episode is not that far distant in the past that Sam can be taken fully at his word right now.

"That's it?" he asks incredulously and Sam sighs, still affronted, and nods.

Not persuaded, Dean channels John and fixes Sam with a stern look, crossing his own arms and showing his kid brother that he means business.

"So, if I were to go into the school tomorrow, I could ask that cute blond secretary and she would tell me all about this play, right?"

Sam throws him a scowl, his hazel eyes wide and flashing with anger. He rips off the ridiculous gloves and hurls them to the floor before stomping out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Above his head, Dean can hear the kid banging down the hallway and into his room. He is about to follow and verbally flay the little bitch for running off on him when he realizes that there is an absence of Sammy's trademark door slamming.

So he waits.

A minute later, the stomping returns in full force and Sam bangs down the stairs, the ancient boards underneath his feet groaning from the abuse. The boy's face is flushed a deep red and he is oozing hostility out of every pore as he thrusts a lime green sheet of paper into Dean's chest before resuming his crossed arm stance.

Dean grabs the crushed paper and smooths out the wrinkles as he reads. Sure enough it is an announcement of the play and he skims through the information, his eyes resting on the words listing an Alex Logan as the assistant casting director. He feels slightly guilty for having doubted his brother's honesty, but he is still not convinced that he has been told the whole story. Sam's tension and mannerisms are clearly hiding something.

"Okaaaay. So, is this something that you want to do?" he asks, because, really, he has no other idea as to what he should say here.

"No," Sam snaps, a little too quickly, before turning around and bending to pick up his gloves from the floor.

He puts them back on and returns to the sink to finish cleaning the pot. Dean frowns and clears his throat, wondering what it is that has his brother so on edge about a stupid school play.

"C'mon, Sam. All you little geek boys like putting on costumes and prancing around," he teases, trying to break the tension in the room. "It could be fun. Why don't you think about it?"

Sam's shoulders stiffen as he puts the pot in the dish rack and pulls the plug out of the drain, watching the soapy water whirl around as it empties. He is quiet as he grabs a sponge and mops out the sink before pulling his gloves off and staring out the window in front of him into the darkness of the winter night.

"Sam?" Dean's voice is quiet, concerned.

Sam lets out a heavy breath, his lips pursed into the scowl.

"Forget it," he spits out. "Practices are on the weekends, and Dad said I was home on the weekends unless I'm with you."

Dean's head shoots up and frowns in confusion. "When did he tell you that?"

This piece of information is news to Dean and he wonders why neither of them have mentioned it to him. Dean should have been told if he's going to be expected to enforce it. He fumes, knowing that if John is not careful, Sam will choke on the leash around his neck and struggle that much harder to escape them both.

"When he came in to say goodbye to me before he left."

"I'm sorry, Sammy," Dean utters quietly, reaching out squeeze his brother's shoulder. "I didn't know."

Sam recognizes the honesty in his brother's tone and words and finally lifts his head up, peeking out at Dean from underneath his shaggy fringe of hair.

"It's okay. It doesn't matter."

Dean grabs his other shoulder and gives the kid a little shake. "Hey. It does matter, Sam. If you want to do this, I'll figure out a way to make it work. Don't worry about it."

Sam just shakes his head sadly, a rueful smile on his face. "Yeah, sure." He pulls away from his brother's grasp.

"I'm not interested, so you don't have to bother." After another few seconds of silence, Sam turns away from his brother's probing stare. "Can I go now? I have homework."

Dean nods and watches as the boy shuffles out of the room. There is more going on here, and he is going to find out what the whole story is. He grabs his beer from the counter and downs it, sad that the comfortable mood of earlier in the evening has just been shattered with one stupid phone call.

/

You're saying that all wrong, you know."

Sam looks up from his Latin book to glare at his brother. Dean is sitting across from him at the small coffeehouse table and reading Guns and Ammo.

"You can't even read it, Dean," Sam replies testily, confident in his own language skills and reminding his brother of one of his few failings as a hunter. "How do you know I'm saying it wrong?"

Dean glances up from his magazine and cocks an eyebrow, giving Sam an inpenetrable stare.

"I can read the words just fine, smartass," Dean snaps back. "What's more important, I can pronounce them correctly. An exorcism isn't going to work if you put the emphasis on the wrong syllable of a word."

He pauses to let his reprimand sink it, which it does when Sam scowls and buries his head back into the book.

"Try again."

Sam takes a deep breath, willing himself to keep his temper in check and refrain from popping his brother in the mouth. Because it's mid afternoon, and the coffeehouse is empty, they have taken the opportunity to practice Sam's Latin exorcism skills. Their father called to check on them last night, and he'll be expecting Sam to have completed the practice assignment that was set for him.

Sam would rather just work on his physics homework.

At his brother's insistent prodding, Sam picks the rite up again and struggles through the first few passages that are annoyingly difficult, even with his mastery of the language itself, while Dean listens. He is halfway through when the glass door swings open and a girl's voice calls out to him.

"Hey, Sam!"

The classical language's words stick in his throat and he drops the book like it was on fire, scrunching his eyes up in discomfort as his face flushes a bright red and retrieves it surreptitiously.

Damn

The girl's greeting has caught Dean's attention and he watches her bounce in and approach his visibly rattled brother. She's cute, in a wholesome, book smart sort of way. Her wavy brown hair is pulled back in a floppy ponytail that seems to work well with her face and she has enormous ice blue eyes that give Sam's puppy dog orbs a run for their money. Her body is petite, but she apparently has the strength to carry around a bulky stack of report cover boxes fairly easily.

Sam is still blushing furiously, but he manages to lift his head up enough to croak out a quick greeting. Dean has not seen the little geek this uncomfortable in ages.

"Hi."

The girl smiles widely, showing off perfect white teeth, and she deposits her boxes on the table that Sam is working at. Making her way over to his side, she peers over his shoulder and tries to get a glimpse of the book he is hunched over, as he attempts to hide the title.

"So, what are you reading today?"

Sam shifts slightly in his seat, clearing his throat awkwardly. For a minute, Dean thinks that maybe this girl is some over-rambunctious admirer and starts to intercept until he sees a sheepish grin cross his brothers face. He realizes quickly that Sam definitely likes the bubbly brunette and backs off.

"It's um..Latin," Sam answers quietly and even though he is not looking at the girl, his face pleads for understanding.

Fortunately, Dean seems to be right in that she is a female version of his geek boy brother. She squeals and her face is almost stretched to the breaking point by her smile.

"Latin? That is so neat! I'm terrible at languages. I didn't even want to try something that hard. What made you interested?"

Sam shifts in his seat again and throws Dean a nervous look. His big brother shrugs and nods, giving him the go-ahead.

"My Dad is kind of a...um...renaissance man. He insisted on me learning it."

The girl looks clearly impressed and she beams at Sam. "That is so cool. Your Dad sounds awesome."

Out of sheer habit, Sam bristles at the praise of his father and it rankles on Dean's nerves that even now Sam can't be grateful for something that John had taken pains to teach them. Annoyed, he decides that Sam's free pass from humiliation is over with that slight on their dad. He scowls and clears his throat loudly making Sam stiffen, knowing that his brother is now expecting an introduction.

The girl's blue eyes cloud over with irritation, as if Dean is the rudest thing she has ever seen, forgetting that she has thrown her stuff all over the magazine he was reading, and she levels him with a glare until Sam speaks.

"Uh..this is my brother Dean," he says quietly, jerking his chin in his brother's direction. He pauses for a second and forces the next few words out, already knowing what the fallout of them is going to be. "Dean, this is my friend, Alex."

And with those few words, it all comes together.

Dean smirks at his little brother who is desperately trying to hide behind his shaggy fringe. He glances up at Alex, who is now smiling at him since he has been identified as the big brother that Sam is constantly talking about.

"It's nice to meet you Alex," he greets her, in his friendliest voice. The one saved for grandmothers and trusted contacts of John, and not the one he uses when he is making a move on a pretty girl.

For which Sam is truly thankful.

Sam's gratitude isn't long lasting. He watches as Dean cocks his head to the side, as if he is putting puzzle pieces together, and Sam already knows what his brother is going to say before the words even come out of his mouth.

"So, are you the Alex that's working on that play?" Dean's voice is polite and inquisitive and Sam recognizes it as the con man voice that he uses on the job. For her part, Alex perks up even more and she nods enthusiastically.

"Yeah, I am. Actually, that's why I'm here. I saw Sam through the window and I was hoping to get him to change his mind about tryouts on Tuesday."

Sam is now staring down at the floor, hoping that it will miraculously open up and swallow him whole. He hears his brother snicker and steels himself for more embarrassment.

"Really?" Dean raises an eyebrow and gifts Alex with the smile that always gets his way with pretty girls. "What makes you think Sammy boy would be a good actor?"

Alex's perkiness is contagious and she gushes over.

"Oh, well, because when our class read the play in English Lit last month, Sam did a super job with the part of George. It would be so awesome to have him do it up on the stage. Everyone thinks so."

"Everyone?" Dean asks, barely able to keep a straight face, especially when Alex nods with such energy that her ponytail practically bounces off of her head.

He turns to his little brother who seems to be mouthing words to himself and realizes, after a few seconds, that Sam is attempting to exorcise him. He is seconds away from losing his composure and busting out laughing, so he turns away from them under the guise of checking phone messages.

Dean listens as Alex continues attempting to persuade Sam to try out. Sam keeps refusing, but Dean knows his little brother and can hear the reluctance in his voice. It's beginning to sound more and more like this play is really something that his little brother would like to do. He stays out of it though, until he hears Sam respond again, this time with a crack in his voice that generally is a precursor to him losing his temper.

"I really can't, Alex. Look, I'd like to, but I have the AP reviews on Tuesdays and my Dad has me doing things on the weekends."

When Dean turns back around, he can see that Alex is not the kind of girl that takes no for an answer. And he is also pretty sure that it is an answer that Sam doesn't really want to give her. He listens while she calls bullshit on the AP studies and reminds him that he can do the reviews during the study hall that she shares with him, and can't help smiling at the way she stands her ground.

"Yeah, well, my Dad still won't let me do it, so it doesn't matter."

Dean hates to hear the defeat in his brother's voice as he makes that admission.

It's true that John will probably be fairly pissed by the idea of Sammy not coming to the meet ups for a while, but Dean is determined that this is the year that Sam gets to do normal things. He still hasn't forgiven his father for confining Sam to the house without talking to him about it. He doesn't expect Dad to confer with him regarding Sam's restrictions, but if he is supposed to enforce them, he would at least like the courtesy of being informed.

He looks over to his brother, ignoring the bouncy girl.

"If you want to do this, Sammy, I'll get Dad to agree to it. I told you that."

Dean's voice is clear and strong and it isn't hard for Sam to believe that his big brother will do exactly what he says he will.

Sam doesn't say anything, but when he lifts his head from the table, he is once again the little boy that thought his brother could lasso the moon and Dean's heart skips a beat with forgotten affection.

Alex squeals again and she grabs her boxes, thanking Dean and telling Sam that she expects to see him at the tryouts. She waves goodbye and bounces out of the coffeehouse, leaving both Winchester boys exhausted from her boundless energy.

"You really like her, don't you?"

Sam mutters a quiet yeah and Dean knows that he will do whatever he has to do to persuade their father to release Sam from their weekend obligations until this play is over.

His brother only has a few more months of normal left, and he's still smarting from the whole Kristin debacle. If the kid is willing to put himself back out there, with a girl that is decidedly more his style, Dean's going to make it happen.

/

Dean is an angry sleeper.

With a gun under his pillow, and an itchy trigger finger, besides.

That's why Sam doesn't even consider trying to get payback for his own rude birthday awakening last May. Holding a plate containing a Swiss Roll with a candle plopped in the middle in one hand, and a peace offering of a mug of hot coffee in the other. He doesn't bother either knocking on the door loudly or quietly sneaking in, simply walking in casually and speaking in a conversational voice.

"Dean, it's your brother. Don't shoot. Everything's okay."

There is an expected half-snore/half grunt from the general direction of his brother's lump in the bed, before the lumps moves, groans and finally pulls itself out from the tangle of blankets.

"Sammy? What's going on?"

Sam snorts and climbs on the bed, balancing the plate and mug as he folds his legs underneath him.

"It's your birthday, jerk. Happy Birthday."

Dean's eyes are bleary, but he smiles, rubbing his face and sitting up straighter. He sees the steaming coffee and holds out his hands like a grubby, needy toddler.

"Gimme."

Sam rolls his eyes and hands it over before using the lighter he liberated from Dean's coat pocket to ignite the single candle in the cake. When it's lit, Sam hands that over too, and Dean smirks before blowing it out.

"Whadja wish for?"

Dean plucks the candle out and splits the cake apart, handing his brother half.

"None of your business, Nosy Nancy. Eat your chocolate."

Sam smirks, but keeps quiet. If his brother wants to share at some point, he will. They don't talk as they eat, and Dean slurps from his cup while Sam fidgets. He waits until his brother is done with the pastry and then pulls the plate away and leaps to his feet.

"Okay, get ready to go."

Confused, Dean looks at his brother, looks outside at the darkness, and then looks at his brother again with a scowl on his face.

"Go where? It's ass o'clock. Get back to bed. You have school in a few hours."

Sam's not taking no for an answer and, to prove it, he drags Dean's blankets off the bed, ignoring his sibling's squawk, and lets them crumple to the floor.

"No, we have a six hour drive ahead of us, and we need to get moving. You're gonna call me out with a family emergency when the office opens."

"Six hours?" Dean shakes his head, like he can't believe that his brother is serious, and scrunches his eyes closed. "Dude..."

"Don't make me drag you into the shower myself, Dean," Sam yells over his shoulder as he heads out to the hall.

"As if you could, princess," his brother snarks back, but Sam can hear him getting up and moving anyway.

Less than thirty minutes later, they are both showered, dressed and hair gelled. Dean is on his third cup of coffee trying to tamp down on his desire to make himself an only child. He's still annoyed about being pulled from his warm bed when there is nothing actively trying to kill them at the moment, and Sam's insistence on secrecy is getting on his nerves.

When they head out to the driveway, Sam finally stops moving long enough to frown and run a hand through his hair, and Dean's eyes roll in frustration. It's freezing out and his nostril hairs are turning into tiny little icicles.

"What now?"

Letting out a deep sigh, his little brother ponders for a moment and looks between their cars.

"Okay. So, I planned on driving us, because it's your birthday, and I thought that maybe you would want to be the one having your ass chauffeured for a change."

Sam's posturing and honestly perturbed.

"But then I was wondering if it would be more of a gift for you to have some carnal drive time with the Impala. What do you prefer?"

Dean chuckles and thinks for a minute, deciding on whether or not the better fun would be poking Sam with a metaphorical stick.

"I think I would rather be the one driving your car," he says mischievously, getting rewarded with Sam's look of horror as the realization dawns on him.

"Wait. You...what?" Dean's little brother is stuttering and freaked, and it's honestly adorable.

Dean lets the little brat hyperventilate a minute, and then grins, pulling out the Impala's keys from his coat pocket. He dangles them and motions Sam towards the passenger seat.

"I'm always the driver, Sammy. Just point me in the right direction."

They stop once for gas and coffee. Once for an excessively large bag of greasy breakfast burritos and coffee, and then again just a few miles later It's my birthday, and I'm a growing boy, Sammy for two dozen Boston cream donuts and more coffee.

At this point, Dean has the radio cranked all the way up and he's bopping along in the driver's seat to the caffeinated and sugary buzz and heavy bass like a kindergartner off his Ritalin. Dean's phone rings twice. Once from the school confirming Sam's parental approved absence from classes, and then Dad, wishing his firstborn a happy birthday, with an apology that he wasn't with them, but with promises that he'll see the boys soon.

Even with all of the stops and interruptions, they still make it to Deadwood, South Dakota before ten a.m.

Dean's eyes had lit up like a Christmas tree when he realized where they were headed, and Sam grinned, happy that his brother was pleased with their destination. Dean loves anything and everything about the old west. From cowboys to gold trails to saloons and gambling. He loves it all.

He runs around town like a tween drunk on the Mickey Mouse Magic Kool-Aid at Disney, dragging his little brother along from attraction to attraction. They head to the Old Style Saloon, and watch the re-enactment of Wild Bill Hickok's demise. Spend an hour or so traipsing through the various museums with all of the old paraphernalia that makes Dean's face glow. The hit the Broken Boot Gold Mine tour and pan for gold.

They spend enough time in cemeteries, but Sam's not going to be a killjoy today when Dean pulls out his EMF meter to check for anything hinky at Calamity Jane's resting place at Mount Moriah. Finally, they hit the casinos, because Sam thought ahead and brought his fake ID. No one really bothers to check anyway. Dean's so happy to be in his element that his big shit eating grin has even the faded skinned regulars, that barely see sunlight as they while away their lives on the slots, smiling.

Dean's good humor ups his gaming skills at the poker tables and, even with the house edge, he pulls in a respectable pile of cash. When they head out to take advantage of the advertised best steak in town, Dean pays for the two of them to get plates with slabs of meat as big as Sam's face. The younger brother eyes his meal warily, preferring something not quite so beefy, and has to avert his gaze from his brother's nearly pornographic mastication across the table and lusty grunts of pleasure as he chokes it down.

Although it's Dean's birthday, and Sam has been saving from odd jobs shoveling snow for the neighbors, Sam isn't allowed to pay for anything. Dean assures him that he's just enjoying the day, and Sam is pretty sure that his brother feels a bit guilty about taking Sam's allowance away for a while, even if it was justified.

It's almost five o'clock by the time they get ready to leave. They already have a six hour drive back, and Sam has told his brother that they still have one stop to make before reaching home. A couple of hours into their return trip, Sam directs him off an exit and they ride for a little while longer until they reach the center of a pleasant looking village. It takes a few minutes for Sam to get his bearings enough to figure out the right turn, but when they do, Dean just about has a heart attack behind the wheel.

"Sweet Mother of Mercy!"

Molly's Pie Diner is a fantastically retro fifties era tube of shiny chrome and neon signs. There are a healthy number of cars in the parking lot, which is always a good sign. Dean jumps out of the Impala and practically hops to the front door in excitement, eyes wide as saucers.

The interior smells amazing.

All warm fruits and fresh pastry and deep earthy chocolate, mingled with the sizzle of burgers and fresh cut french fries. There are racks along all of the walls, some refrigerated, with an assortment of pies that fill Dean's beady little eyes with desire. Sam holds in his laughter, and secretly hopes that he doesn't have to pick his brother up from the floor from some sort of embarrassingly reverential supplication, and Dean thanks every deity he can think of for finally guiding him home to the mother ship.

They're shown to a clean booth and place their initial orders after Sam assures the slightly terrified waitress that no, my brother was only kidding when he asked for one of everything. Sam loads up on the coffee, because he has a sneaking suspicion that he will be doing some of the drive back after Dean gorges himself into a fruit and whipped cream induced food coma.

One hour, and an absolutely obscene amount of plates later, Dean cheerfully takes the six to-go bags, Sam shaking his head in disbelief, and heads back to the car. Dean has a slightly queasy look on his face as he gets behind the wheel, but he belches and it passes as he starts the ignition.

"Dude, how did you find this place? Fucking awesome."

"It's called the internet, Dean," Sam answers, smiling fondly as the head back towards the highway.

It's almost two in the morning when they finally get home. To Sam's surprise, his brother managed to drive the entire way, pie busting belly and all.

"We are so not running in three hours," Dean mutters as he trudges up the stairs.

"That's okay with me," Sam laughs, rubbing his eyes and looking forward to his soft bed.

They cart the bags of souvenirs and pies into the kitchen and Sam shrugs when Dean throws him a questioning look about where they are going to store all of the pastry. The fridge is neither empty nor exceptionally large.

Sam stops his brother before they head upstairs, grabbing a slim, square shaped, poorly wrapped package from the computer alcove and handing it to Dean.

"Here. This is your real gift."

Dean takes it, a small grin peeking around the corners of his mouth, because it's pretty obvious what it is. When he does get the wrapping paper off, his eyes go huge, because he wasn't expecting this.

For Christmas, one of Dad's gifts to Dean had been a turntable. Because while Sam and the rest of the civilized world live in an age of CDs, Dad and Dean are firmly stuck in the seventies, and Sam's brother loves him some classic vinyl. Dean's eyes scan over the pristine album cover of the debut Led Zeppelin and, for a second, Sam wonders if big brother is about to weep from joy.

"Sammy," Dean stutters, voice heavy with emotion. "Where did you get this?"

Sam laughs softly, not because he wants to make fun of his brother, but because Dean's happiness makes Sam happy too.

"Dude. In-ter-net."

Fortunately, Dean laughs as well, and he puts the album on the kitchen table next to the pies and holds his arms out.

"C'mere, kiddo."

Sam goes willingly into his brother's hug, and he returns it with equal affection.

"Thanks, Sammy. I love it." And you

"Yeah, don't mention it." Love you too, big brother


	11. February 2001

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mistakes were made....

This was, without a doubt, the dumbest idea Sam had ever had.

Not that Dean hadn't done some spectacularly dumb things in his time. Sam's big brother would be the first to admit it.

Take that incident two years ago, for example.

The Winchesters were outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana with Caleb, cleaning up a job at a haunted abandoned prison. It had been an absolute mess. For some stupid reason, people liked to think the mysterious deaths happening there made it a prime place for a tourist attraction. John had shaken his head in disbelief because more often that not civilians were just that stupid.

Even as he salted and burned the bones, Dad had still been muttering something about If ever there was a time to implement Darwinism…

It had taken all four of them, armed to the teeth and fighting anything that shimmered, before all the tortured dead convicts were laid to rest. Dean and Caleb were bouncing on the balls of their feet from a wave of sheer adrenaline, pumped and ready to go again. The fires in the boneyard behind the prison still radiating an inferno of heat, when John's phone rang.

It was Martin, calling for assistance with a banshee in Orlando. John and Martin went way back. Had saved each others lives over and over again, and John didn't even hesitate a second before promising to be on his way in thirty. Caleb was happy to join them, as he had business in Miami with his munitions expert based there.

It was February, and Sam was off from school for winter break. He and his brother had been at each others throats for days. Sam seemed to be the only kid in his class that wasn't going on some sort of fun trip for the holiday, and he really didn't appreciate the jovial observation from Dean that they were on a trip of their own.

The younger brother apparently wasn't counting a multiple murder scene jailhouse cleansing as a good time.

For the two days the job had taken in Fort Wayne, Dean and Sam had been snapping at each other almost every single minute, and the friction had escalated to the point that John's teeth were set on edge. Caleb was a sort of honorary big brother to both of the Winchester boys and Sam, being fifteen and moody, might have been feeling both a little jealous and a little left out by all of the time Caleb and Dean were spending together.

Sam wasn't used to sharing his big brother and, at that particular moment in time, he wasn't shy about expressing his unhappiness, hence the increase in overall snotty behavior that was trying his father's patience. When both boys were in the Impala with their dad, they were bickering constantly, until John, at wits end, told Dean to ride with Caleb, and that just set Sam off even more.

John's firstborn could take a lot of crap from his little brother and let it go, like water off of a duck's back, but their father could see that the older boy was at his limit of patience. Dean was an energetic young man, and he asked for very little for himself. Certainly less than most twenty year olds wanted to have. It was unfair of John to expect him to take a litany of abuse from his little brother without an occasion reward.

The family had been in Florida a couple of years earlier. Sam had begged and pleaded with his father to take them to Busch Gardens for the great roller coasters they had there and the variety of wildlife that wasn't the kind that the family hunted. John refused when he caught a case in Alabama, and his youngest had sulked in the back of the car for the entire trip. That kind of behavior didn't win you any points when your father was John Winchester, and Sam found himself running laps around their motel for days afterwards.

Seeing an opportunity to broker peace here, John told his sons that they were headed down to Orlando, and then promised Sam that if he behaved himself and did the banshee job without complaint or any backtalk, they would stop in Tampa on their way back north. Dad was pretty good about taking the boys for fun outings after a job if they had the time and cash, but he didn't generally offer a treat when a fuss had been made over it once already, and this was uncharted territory.

Thrumming with excitement, and happy for the first time since vacation started, Sam swore up and down that he would be as good as gold and work his ass off, and was already cleaning up the site and packing in half a heartbeat.

Dean was the only one looking down in the mouth, and his father knew it was because his firstborn wasn't looking forward to spending more time in the car with his little brother. It was a fifteen plus hour trip to Orlando, and Dean would be expected to help John drive so they could get there as quickly as possible.

John could see it in his son's eyes. He wasn't blind to all of the sniping going on, and Dean never complained. He gave as good as he got, but he was never really mean to his little brother, and often would wind up doing whatever was needed to get Sam to stop with the attitude. After days of Sam's moodiness, Dean deserved a break.

It wasn't hard to arrange for John and Sam to join Caleb in his Jeep for the trip and let Dean take the Impala by himself. They weren't all needed for the hunt. The older brother could have some personal time and then meet them in Tampa for a day of fun at the theme park. John gave Dean the car keys, some cash and strict instructions to meet them in five days.

Five states in five days.

A boy could get into a lot of trouble with that kind of time and distance on his hands.

The smile on Dean's face had been a mile wide, thoughts of fun nights with pretty girls and no little brother to care for dancing through his head. Sam was already giddy with the idea of a fun vacation activity and spending time around Caleb without Dean, and then Dean put the cherry on the sundae by promising Sam that he would go on every ride with him.

Twice.

Dean had never told Sam what he did for most of that time, but Sam knew that his brother had made it to Tampa a day early when he called Dad to let him know the room number of the motel he had checked into.

What Sam did know was that Dean had gone to a biker bar the night he arrived, gotten completely hammered and hit on a waitress named Darla, with a hot body that more than made up for her lack of mental acuity. Somehow they managed to score a few joints that, unbeknownst to Dean, turned out to be laced with something that he still, to this day, had no idea what it was.

The next thing he knew there were a ton of people and a wire hair fox terrier puppy in the car with him, and they were headed back to Dean's motel room to party.

When Dad and Sam arrived at the motel the next day, Dean wasn't answering the door, so Dad turned it into a lock picking lesson for his younger son. Dean was still passed out when they found him inside.

Spread eagle, naked and tied to the bed, with a bra gag in his mouth. The room was trashed, furniture tipped over and broken. Empty beer and liquor bottles littering every surface. Whoever was with him the night before had taken Dean's cash, his cellphone and his favorite knife, and left him with a spotty memory, the mother of all hangovers and a raging case of chlamydia.

Dad had been in a blind panic until he finally got Dean to wake up. Then Dad had raged. Sam was sent outside to wait in the Impala, and he would have happily stayed out there if the interior of the car wasn't covered in dog fur and pee, with the remnants of some of Dad's favorite cassette tapes strewn all over the seats.

Sam had contemplated keeping quiet, but finally came to the conclusion that it would ultimately be better for his brother to let Dad scream for everything at one time instead of holding back and allowing an opening for an Ass Chewing Part II. So he braved his father's wrath and peeked in the door, where Dean was sitting slumped on the bed covered with a sheet, and Dad's face had worked itself up from red to magenta.

At his youngest son's prompting, John had taken a quick look at the car, and Sam watched his face go all the way to purple as he slammed back into the motel room, rocking the door on its hinges in his wake.

Sam didn't know exactly what his father said to Dean, but when John came out of the room fifteen minutes later, he strode over to where Sam was sitting on the Impala's hood, pointed an irate finger at him and yelled.

"The rules are simple, Sam. You don't take a joint from a guy named Don and there's no dogs in the car!"

And Sam had blinked and yes, sir'd, and was too scared to remind his father that Sam hadn't done anything to get yelled at for. It didn't seem to matter to John at that particular moment.

Dad made Dean get dressed and painstakingly detail the Impala for over two hours. Sam wasn't allowed to help, so he watched from the motel room window as his big brother, pale, sweating and nauseous, scrubbed every inch of the car with their father standing sentry off to the side, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

They did make it to Busch Gardens that day, just before noon. True to his word, Dean dutifully accompanied Sam on the rides, but Sam could see how green around the gills his brother was, suffering in silence like a martyr and feeling guilty as hell.

After just a few spins on the coasters, Sam declared that he was done, and that he wanted to concentrate on the other attractions instead, but Dad was insistent, and he actually made the boys keep riding, reminding Dean that his poor choices weren't going to ruin his little brother's day.

Dean was clearly miserable, but he racked his shoulders back and did as he was told, as always. The pain in Dean's eyes was crippling, and Sam couldn't enjoy another minute knowing that his brother was feeling like shit. Dean spent the rest of the visit pushing Sam towards every ride, barely able to stand upright and struggling to choke back his own vomit.

Even though Dad had kept his word about taking Sam to the theme park he had begged to go to, and Dean had brought his trouble upon himself, Sam hated his father that day.

That trip had been a pinnacle of dumb things to do in the world of the Winchester brothers, and as Sam pressed on the gas of his Camaro and roared towards the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains, he already knew that he was about to outdo his brother on the dumb idea scale.

/

Dean sat on the recently recovered sofa, tiredly nursing a beer. His whole body ached. Bobby had him working on an engine rebuild all day and it was just being a complete bitch. The weather had been that kind of cold and damp gray pall that just sucked the energy right out of you. He would have preferred snow. At least snow didn't make his muscles stiff.

Not that he was complaining about his job. Bobby had been damn good to them since the move.

He was idly watching the new television set that was showing a decade old segment of This Old House. Bob Vila was giving careful instruction on grouting tile with far too much enthusiasm in Dean's opinion.

Normally, he wouldn't give crap like this the time of day, but the first floor half bathroom in the rented house still looked like hell, worse than most of the run down motel rooms that he had lived in over the years. Except for the few projects that Dad had helped him with, Dean didn't know jack about home improvement.

His father would be by to visit in a couple of weeks and, depending on his mood, which wasn't actually very charitable towards his firstborn at the moment, might or might not be willing to lend a hand. Whatever John didn't agree to, Dean would figure it out for himself.

Not that they really had the money for renovations on a house that wasn't even theirs, but Dean was putting some aside every week just the same. The longer they stayed, the more attached Dean found himself becoming and he often caught himself planning for the long haul.

Realistically, he knew it should only be temporary. Sammy would be done with school in June, and then it would be back out onto the road with their dad. However, until that time, Dean didn't want his kid brother ashamed of bringing home the select few friends that he had made.

Sammy's study group had been meeting at their house once every other week, in rotation with the homes of the other members. Although it would have been nice to have a working bathroom on the first floor, the brothers just kept the door shut during the study sessions and directed the kids upstairs to the big bathroom that the two bedrooms shared.

It was an easy solution when the group had been just starting out and small.

After Dad grounded Sam in the wake of the infamous party incident, Dean had been pleased to hear that his little brother's study buddies were more than happy to just hold all of their review sessions at the Winchester house, instead of trading off, since Sam was on lock down. Quite frankly, it was what Dean had wanted all along, and he was especially happy when the decision was made without him suggesting it, because Sam could still be a bit touchy.

Not just because Dean would prefer the kid stay where big brother could keep a close eye on him, but also because it showed Sam that he really did have some good friends. Ones who would prefer to change their plans around to accommodate him, so that he could still spend time with them, instead of leaving him out in the cold.

As a result, Dean had really been going the extra mile to make them all feel as comfortable as possible.

For a house kept by two young men, it was very tidy. Dad was a stickler about neatness, his military mind demanding organization, and he hated clutter. The brothers split the chores for housekeeping, and floors were mopped regularly and dirty dishes didn't sit in the sink.

The kitchen was Dean's domain for the most part, except for the dinner dishes. He also had all the household laundry going near constantly, and the whole place usually smelled of clean linen and perfumed dryer sheets unless dinner was burning. Sam bitched when he was assigned the chore of cleaning the upstairs bathroom, but his meticulous nature kept all of the surfaces shining regardless.

Over time, Dean had been steadily adding to their mismatched collection of furniture odds and ends.

An end table in the living room, between the couch and stuffed chair, with a lamp that gave a softer lighting than the harsh florescent overheard. A dark wood entertainment center for the upgraded television, replacing the old set borrowed from Bobby and the cart on wheels it had sat upon.

There were framed photos on the walls of the brothers and their parents. Some new, like the ones taken at Christmas and Sam's senior photo from Holy Rosary. Some borrowed from their father's limited collection, copied and enlarged. The living room also had a bookcase, reasonably similar enough to the entertainment center, but not quite exact. Sam was busy filling its shelves, and Dean made sure that he had the means to do so.

The kitchen was newly repainted, and the small table and battered chairs had been relocated down to John's work area in the basement, and then replaced with a bigger farmhouse table Bobby got off a neighbor that was retiring to Florida. It came with a long bench for one side and six chairs for the other three. Large enough for Sam's study group to gather around in the evening.

For someone that had only vague memories of a home, Dean proved to be rather adept at artfully arranging framed prints that they bought cheap for the kitchen walls. There were even a few plants scattered here and there. Dean liked them for the homey atmosphere they gave off, and Dad liked them because they were all herbs that could be used for spell work.

It was a cozy place to gather.

Dean took it one step further, and started encouraging Sam to invite his friends for dinner before their reviews. Their food budget wasn't limitless, but it was decent enough, especially as Sam was growing again.

Pasta was cheap, and Dean would put together huge bowls of it, trying out different sauces and adding another big bowl of salad and the garlic toast Dad showed him how to make. Sometimes it would be a stock pot of chili, with shredded cheese and buttery slabs of cornbread on the side. The kids were even happy with tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

It was informal and messy. Loud with laughter and friendship.

As word got around, the size of the group increased from eight to thirteen. Sam squinted at his brother apologetically when the kitchen got more crowded, and Dean just smiled, shrugged, and added another box of pasta to the boiling pot of holy water.

With so many kids in the house, the additional bathroom was becoming a necessity, since no one was allowed in John's living/work space in the basement for obvious reasons. Which is why Dean was suddenly concerned with grout.

Over the low volume of the television, Dean could hear the start of his brother's wet cough beginning again, the sound drifting down from Sam's bedroom upstairs. Checking his watch, he noticed that it was almost time for another dose of the prescription cough medicine that they had picked up after their Monday night visit to the local Urgent Care clinic. He had already had his evening antibiotic.

This was the second time that Sam had been ill with the flu since they moved to Sioux Falls. Dean's little brother was generally pretty healthy, and that was saying something considering some of the more skeevy places they were forced to stay on occasion.

The fact that the kid was living in the cleanest environment they had called home since Lawrence, and going to a posh school where even a sniffle was treated with top notch medical care, and he still kept getting sick, was stressing Dean out.

Inwardly, Dean had been really proud of the fact that he could pay for his brother's doctor visit himself instead of relying on the phony insurance cards that their father had pressed into his hands back in August. With them settled in town, Sam didn't need to worry about not getting medical treatment because his insured last name was Daltry.

Pushing himself up from the couch, he climbed the stairs and gave Sammy's door a brief knock before coming in.

Sam was bundled in his bed, books and papers piled around him in what appeared to be an unsuccessful attempt to study. Dean frowned when he saw them, having specifically told his cranky little brother to get some sleep when he sent him to bed after Sam was too feverish and snotty to choke down a little of the tomato rice soup Dean had made for him.

He lifted an eyebrow in annoyance, earning himself a flushed face scowl in return, Sam looking all of six years old pouting under the blankets. Stubborn brat was always a monumental pain in the ass when he was under the weather.

Unless Dad was home, of course. Then it was all glassy eyes and clingy arms and instant compliance to Dad's orders. It was the only time Sam didn't fight with their father, and guaranteed that he would start one with his big brother.

Too exhausted to debate the lack of adherence to the previous command to rest, the older brother refrained from making any comment that might provoke a battle. Neither one of them had the energy at this point as Sam hadn't been sleeping well, and when Sammy didn't sleep well, Dean didn't either.

Shaking his head in irritation, he grabbed the bottle of cough syrup from the bathroom next door and refilled the small measuring cap, carrying it back into Sam's room and handing it to his little brother silently. Sam kept the scowl firmly in place as he reached for it, knocking it back like a shot of whiskey that somehow made him feel less childlike than just obediently taking his medicine like a good little boy.

The silent battle of wills continued after Dean washed the cap off and replaced it. Giving his little brother a don't mess with me look, he proceeded to clear all of the study material from Sam's bed, daring the congested kid to say something about it. For all of his bravado, Sam didn't have the energy to argue either, especially since he could already feel the wave of drowsiness that the medication induced coming over him.

Covering a cough with his hand, he turned over onto his side and burrowed into his pillow, his eyes already shut tightly in exhaustion. Dean reached out a hand, pushing aside the slightly damp bangs as he pressed the back of his fingers to Sam's forehead. Even with his eyes closed, Sam still managed a fairly decent bitch face, surprisingly his only outward sign of indignation at the prospect of his big brother going all mother hen on him, the large rough hand gentle as it searched for an increase in fever.

Satisfied that Sam's forehead was hovering in a normal range all things considered, Dean pulled away and straightened back up.

"Get some sleep, Sammy," he insisted, his voice quiet but firm. "I mean it, kiddo. I come back in here and find books on your bed again, I'll be throwing them in the wood stove to help with the heating costs. Got it?"

"We don't have a wood stove," Sam grumped, choking back another coughing fit into his pillow.

"I'll buy one," Dean snapped, frowning as he switched the light off. "You hear me?"

Sam managed a small grunt of assent, not too tired to flip his brother off as he slipped back into a heavy slumber. Dean watched him for a minute to reassure himself that his kid brother was breathing as steadily as could be expected before soundlessly padding out of the room and heading back downstairs.

Flopping back down on the couch, Dean watched the credits of the show roll and cursed, half annoyed that he had missed the final part of the segment.

Oh, well

He would just have to figure the rest out for himself. Luckily for him, he had always managed to pick up stuff like that fairly easily. He might not have Sam's freaky almost photographic memory, but he did just fine for himself, thank you very much.

Sam had been feeling a little rundown most of last week, and Dean wasn't surprised that the kid was wiped out considering how many extracurricular activities he was involved in. It seemed like Sammy was always on the go from this club to that club to this practice for something.

While Dean worried about his little brother wearing himself down, he was also pleased with the fact that Sam was making the most of his year at his school. Finally able to join whatever he wanted and getting it all out of his system, so that when they had to go back on the road again, there wouldn't be any regrets of if only and I wish I had lingering in his little brother's mind.

No matter what the future brought them, Sam would always have this year to look back on and have good memories of a normal life.

It was the least Dean could do for him. The road ahead was rough and bumpy and dangerous, and while he would do everything he could to protect the kid, they were hunters first and foremost, and they had an obligation to do whatever they could to protect and save people who were in the dark about the real things in life that could hurt them.

The chest congestion hadn't really made itself known until his Saturday evening performance of Our Town. It hadn't been easy to convince their father to let Sam skip out on their weekend meets so he could do the show, once John came back into the area from his mysterious trip.

With Dean backing him up, Sam went to the play tryouts that Tuesday after the little brunette cornered them at the coffeehouse. Alex's bouncy enthusiasm dragged him down the hallway at school towards the theater where the other students were milling around to read for parts. After two hours of readings, Sam had walked away with the part of George Gibbs and, to his complete surprise, Alex was cast as Emily Webb.

The theater kids clique was small and incestuous and, apparently, her assistant casting director position did not disqualify her from being awarded the female lead. Dean had smiled when he heard the news, knowing without needing to be told that this had been the reason behind her full court press regarding Sam's participation.

Sammy was a Winchester. Of course the chicks would be chasing him, the big brother thought fondly.

Dad had come to stay with them for a couple of days later that week, looking well and truly wrecked. The boys had seen the aftereffects of bad hunts before, but these latest secretive trips of their father's seemed to be worse than ever. Leaving Dean concerned for his dad's mental state and, as usual, John wasn't giving any information on his whereabouts for the past month. It was always frustrating for both boys, but this had been the first time that Dean was even more perturbed than his little brother normally was.

As far as he knew, Dad hadn't been on any of the usual brand of hunts.

John would have shared his information if he had been, because it was always important for the boys to understand what he had run up against and also how to take it down in case they had to deal with it in the future. The fact that Dad wasn't saying anything at all was what really got under his firstborn's skin, and no amount of persuasion was successful in getting their father to open up about where or how he had spent his time away from them.

Frustrated and worried, but knowing he wasn't getting answers, Dean waited until Sammy was in bed before he managed to summon up the nerve to ask their father why his little brother was put on lock down during John's absence and why Dean wasn't informed.

His father had looked at him a little strangely, confusion clouding his eyes for a second, before he shook his head in irritation and told Dean that it should have been understood if they weren't with him.

That was certainly not the standard protocol and, for a moment, Dean was going to remind his father of that, but considering the man's current state of mental agitation, he decided against it.

After all of those hours going over the rules at the start of the school year, the mandatory activities of the brothers were laid out in no uncertain terms. Dean didn't know what had changed in his father's mind to deviate from those terms, but he also knew his chances were slim to none about getting any real straight truth about that at the moment. He pushed his raising ire aside and changed the subject for both of their sakes.

Instead, he had gingerly broached the subject of Sam's desire to do the play, and his accomplishment of getting cast in the lead role. As expected, their father had dismissed the idea outright, the irritation on his face getting significantly more noticeable, as if he couldn't believe the brazen impudence of his firstborn to even suggest such a thing.

Dean loved his father, and respected him above everything else in his life. He willingly did anything asked of him and never questioned or complained, because he took pride in being a good son. There was a time, in the not so recent past, when he would have yes sir, sorry sir'd his father and tucked his tail between his legs and told his little brother that he would have to quit the show after all.

Not this time.

For all of the love and respect he had for John, he had made his brother a promise, and Dean intended to keep it. There simply was no good reason why Sam couldn't be allowed to have this, and since his father didn't seen inclined to provide one, Dean couldn't help feeling that it was unreasonable and unnecessary to deny his little brother.

What Sam wanted wasn't dangerous and it wasn't illegal. The practices and the performance were held on school grounds where it was safe.

Dean pointed out to his father that if there was a hunt that John needed back up for, Sam could stay at Bobby's place, like John himself had allowed so many times over the years, and Dean would more than willingly be by his father's side, as always.

Dean's entire life, he had accepted his father's commands like gospel. It would never even have occurred to him to shirk an order, or question it. Maybe it was because he was getting older, or because he was feeling a bit of more freedom of his own. Maybe it was because his father's behavior over the last few months had changed in more ways that one.

Some good, some downright scary.

Whatever it was, Dean wasn't the same snap to soldier he had been in August. He felt somewhat bad about that, because that had never been his intention when suggesting this break in the family business, but he couldn't help the way he felt now. Their time in the little house, less on the hunt and more in the civilian world, had changed Dean in small and subtle ways. Reawakening a small hidden desire for a little more stability in his own life that he hadn't let himself feel since his time with Sonny.

John was always going to be his father, and the man he looked to for guidance and orders out in the field, and sometimes in life too, but Dean was no longer the boy that would accept commandments without question, and it was going to take more than just John saying because I said so now.

Didn't mean Dean wasn't going to still feel guilty about that.

Without being disrespectful, because he genuinely didn't want to be, Dean finally convinced his father to allow Sam to perform, after promising to find a way that Dean himself could be present during the practices. It wasn't an ideal compromise, especially since Sam already felt claustrophobic, but it was going to have to be enough.

Deep down, Dean could feel his father's disappointment in his oldest son's new tone and demeanor. That knowledge disturbed him all the way down to a cellular level, because part of what made Dean who he was, was the loyal and obedient son he had been all of his life. It was hard for him to admit that he was becoming someone he never foresaw himself evolving into.

He also admitted to himself that things may have been different if John had been the least bit forthcoming about the hunt that had changed everything so radically, and given his boys even a tiny scrap of information about what he had been doing when he dropped off the face of the Earth for almost a month.

Dean was no longer a child, and it was getting harder to take things on faith.

They were used to him being gone, but Dean knew something big was brewing, and the fact that his father didn't seem to trust him enough to confide in him was a painful shock to the young man's system. He had always given his all, every minute of every day, and he couldn't help feeling that he had earned the right to be given at least the basics of whatever it was that had his father so drastically altered and shaken.

From the time he was a preschooler he had been prepared to work as hard as he was needed to. Bleed as much as he was required. Train until his muscles gave out. Help raise his brother no matter how much Dean needed to forfeit himself to get the job done. Seventeen years of love, sweat, pain, obedience and sacrifice, only to be stonewalled by the father he had given everything he had in him to give.

The hurt of an insecure child was warring with the frustration and anger of an emerging independent man.

Another part of the equation was the absolute surety that Sammy was pulling in another direction, and Dean was determined to see that never happen. If it took Dean setting the example to their father that his sons were growing up, then that was what he was going to do.

Sam had always exhibited the independent nature that Dean had suppressed for the good of his family. His little brother was kept compliant for now under the threat of punishment for disobedience, but the time was rapidly coming when that would no longer be be the case. Sam was going to need additional inducements to accept his hunting life as a willing adult, and not as a child without a choice.

The research for the hunts was every bit as important as the physical part of them. Sammy was a capable hunter for his age. Strong and talented. Good with a gun or a knife. He didn't hesitate in a fight and not much really scared him, except for clowns. He was a good hunter, but Dean knew that he hated the fight, and hated all the bloodshed that came with it.

Dad was going to have to understand that Sam's part of the family business was going to be as the bookworm, and not the warrior. Dean himself was more than willing and able to do the dirty work. In fact, he was thrilled as hell to see what his little brother could come up with as far as lore went when he had the ability to study it full time.

How many hunts had they missed simply because they didn't have the knowledge to recognize abstract cases? How many more lives could they save with new information?

Dean wanted Sam to see the hunting life as an adult. When the frequent travels were made without the emotional attachments to school friends, and he didn't have to juggle research assignments on top of class assignments. It could be a good life. A fun life, if Sam could just be given the chance to understand that, without having his mind half focused on homework.

It was time for his serious little brother to relax and enjoy himself. Go to a bar with his big brother. Enjoy the company of pretty young ladies. To stop working himself sick, like he was right now.

Sammy was a caring and compassionate kid. Dean was positive that his little brother would still get pleasure out of helping people if it meant he didn't add to his scar collection on a regular basis.

It wasn't as if they hunted every single day of their lives. Sure, evil was busy, but they had never caught cases twenty-four/seven. There would be stretches of a week or two at a time when they laid low and hustled to line their pockets. A chance for the brothers to spend time doing fun things, and not worrying about the next monster coming down the pike.

Time for Dad and Sam to get to know one another as people and not just father and son at each other's throats. Maybe they could finally have the chance to develop the kind of more comfortable bond that John and Dean had and, God willing, Sammy could stop being so angry all the time. They were getting so much closer to that being a reality, Dean could almost taste it.

It was a heady dream.

One that Dean was willing to put everything he could into making a reality. Dad and Sam didn't know it yet, but Dean was going to fight to keep a hold on their little house for as long as he could.

/

When Jim Murphy was a small boy of nine years old, his mother went completely insane.

It happened gradually, over time.

At first it was random bouts of paranoia and increased anxiety regarding Jim and his brother. Whether it was where they were going, or if they were sleeping too much or too little.

Then it was the blink of an eye mood shifts, where she would either be smothering them with affection or screaming at the top of her lungs and pelting them with flying projectiles of whatever was accessible at the moment.

Sometimes she forgot their names, and on the really bad days, forgot who they were entirely.

She would shriek and threaten to dial the police if the two little urchins in her house didn't get away from her immediately. Usually followed by her inability to remember who she was going to call and dropping down onto her bed to sleep for twelve hours while the boys made themselves sandwiches and huddled together on the front steps of their house waiting for the next crisis.

On occasion she would talk about their father, and hysterically rant on the evils of the world. The monsters in it that took good men from their families, and how she needed to protect her boys from meeting the same fate. Jim and his brother were too young to understand what she meant, only knowing that Pop was dead because of a conflict in some country called Korea.

There were good days when she would be coherent enough to collect the mail and remember to deposit the benefit checks that the family received after the death of Jim's father during active military duty. Bills would get paid and groceries were bought, and the brothers could breathe easier for a minute.

Then everything would shift again, and the two boys had only each other to rely on while their mother mentally checked out of consciousness. They learned early to keep their heads down and not make waves because they had already lost their father, and their mother was never really far behind him.

In the end, it was a garbage man with a drinking problem and poor work ethic that finally drove her over the edge.

For some reason that will forever remain unknown, Jim's mother was tipped completely over the edge simply because their street got skipped on trash night. It was as if she saw such an innocuous action as a harbinger that all safety and reality was deserting her and her boys, and an overwhelming need to protect them from the evil that lurked in the darkness took a hold of her and refused to let go.

The boys should have known better. It was only their youth, and a desperate hope to see their mother acting normally, that blinded them to the mania in her eyes when she piled them into the car for ice cream.

It was the middle of the summer, the air humid and ripe with cut grass and barbecue smoke. They drove down to the lake and stopped at the ice cream stand a few hundred yards from the boat launch. Jim's mother gave each of her boys a dollar and they clambered out of the car to stand in line and get their treats, excitement shining in their eyes, like all children when swirly cones and sundaes were scooped nearby.

Neither noticed the thousand yard stare on their mother's face while she sat behind the wheel, leisurely smoking a cigarette.

The boys piled back into the back seat, cones in their hands already starting to melt in the summer heat, dripping down their fingers as they rushed to lick the sides. They jostled each other good naturedly, in the way that siblings do, twisting against the sticky warmth of the vinyl underneath them as they put their bare feet up against the back of the front bench seat.

When the last crunch of cone had been eaten, the boys scrubbing at the messy dribbles on their chins with balled up paper napkins, Mother started the car and pulled away from the stand. By the time the boys realized that she turned left towards the lake and not right towards town, it was too late.

The impact of the car diving into the water shocked them at first, in the way that your mind is aware that something terrible is happening, but can't quite register the specifics of what it was just yet. The windows were half open because the boys had been enjoying the breeze as they cruised along the drive to town, and neither was prepared for the rush of water that poured into the car at high speed.

Mother wasn't moving in the front street, and Jim remembers being confused as to why she wasn't doing something, anything, to help her boys in the back. Her eyes were open and staring at the darkening depth coming ever closer to them, and there was a keening noise in the background that he didn't recognize as his own vocalized terror until he saw his brother choking and flailing when his side of the car pitched further downward than Jim's.

After that, everything seemed to crawl to slow motion.

He remembers the encroaching darkness. The coldness of the lake water that deadened his limbs and infiltrated his lungs, making them burn with agony as his body kicked into fight or flight. The lack of oxygen caused black spots in his vision and he struggled to grab his brother and try to make it to one of the open windows, but his eyes were unfocused, and he was small and scared and his brother kept slipping from his grasp.

He thrashed in the icy water, managing to push enough against the glass of his half opened window to crack it, and then break it entirely. The jagged edges ripped open his wrist and the water tinged pink as he bled.

A sort of peace came over him after that, as he halted his struggles, and he felt himself drift and nothing hurt anymore. But then a blinding white light blazed through his closed eye lids and he saw his brother, glowing and smiling at him, and telling him that everything was going to be okay and, for some reason, Jim had believed him.

He learned the truth when he woke up in the children's ward of the hospital a day later. Two good Samaritans had seen the car take it's watery crash into the lake and they dove in after it. They had reached Jim first and were able to pull him out and resuscitate him, but it had been too late to save his mother and brother.

After almost a week in the hospital, weak from blood loss and fighting off an infection from the bacteria in the lake water that had aspirated into his lungs, he was released into the custody of the state of Minnesota. With no family left to speak of, a local Lutheran church made the arrangements to bury Jim's mother and brother, and then placed Jim in an affiliated orphanage outside of St. Paul.

His entire world shattered, Jim had retreated into himself, speaking to no one and barely going through the necessary motions to keep himself clean and fed. His brother had promised that he would be okay, but the family-less orphan felt anything but okay as he spent his days curled up on his bed in the dormitory he shared with seven other boys.

When one of the pastors that volunteered at the orphanage tried to convince the distraught child that God had saved him for a purpose, it had taken every ounce of self restraint Jim had in him not to lash out at the man over the absurdity of the statement. He settled for grabbing a glass that contained milk he refused to drink, and hurling it against the wall in despair.

The resounding crack snapped him somewhat back to his senses as he watched the liquid drip down the wall and onto the floor in a shiny white puddle and, having always been a good and kind boy at heart, he immediately felt regret. He darted over to begin picking up the mess, accidentally cutting a large gash on his hand from the razor sharp shards.

He didn't know how it happened. Not really.

All he knew was that one minute the kind pastor had been kneeling next to him to assist, blood flowing everywhere, and the next a spectral image was dancing over them, and the pastor's face had gone completely white as he recognized the face of his dead daughter.

That was when Jim Murphy realized that his brush with the afterlife had created a gateway between himself and the ones that had passed on, and he could summon the dead to him, it he was willing to spill his own blood to do it.

It was only a matter of time before he eventually became acquainted with the world of the supernatural because, after all, hunters always come to The Life from some sort of personal tragedy.

At first he thought he was going crazy, since crazy ran bone deep in his family already, what with the homicidal/suicidal mother and all. It took years of maturing and deep personal reflection, and a growing understanding of the sub-world surrounding him, before he finally accepted the Gift? Curse? for what it was. Sometimes he wondered if his mother's mania really did stem from an awareness of the evil in the world and not necessarily just out of a chemical imbalance and early widowhood.

Time spent in the orphanage, under the tutelage and care of the good clergy there, encouraged his entry to seminary. In religion, he found peace. Not just for his own personal need to stave off the possibility of encroaching insanity, but also the fulfillment he found in helping those around him. Some he helped as a newly ordained pastor at a small church in Blue Earth, and some he helped with his less obvious talents.

That was how he first encountered John Winchester and his boys.

John came to him through a mutual friend, and although Jim's attempt to help the grieving widower connect to his late wife had been not only unproductive, but potentially disastrous, the two men bonded over shared grief. The connection to Mary Winchester had been interrupted by something that could only be described as a demonic interference. As if the forces of the afterlife were conspiring to keep Mary and John apart.

Jim had been attacked on a physical and spiritual level that day, and it was a miracle he had survived. Even so, he had offered on more than one occasion after that, to try again. To John's credit, the grieving widower never accepted Jim's offer, although the pastor could see that he was sorely tempted. Jim eventually stopped offering, since his good intentions only served to increase the other man's pain.

That's not to say that he couldn't help the little family in other ways.

Over the years, Jim had welcomed them into his home at the church whenever John and his boys needed shelter and rest. In John, Jim saw his own mother, distraught with grief and desperate to come to terms with the horrific loss he had suffered. In Sam and Dean, Jim saw himself and his brother. Two young boys growing up in a shattered family with only one damaged parent to care for them.

Jim was another hunter in the small circle of Winchester family confidants that genuinely loved the brothers. He had offered his home to them many times over the years so that they could grow up in one place and establish roots, but John had always rejected the offer outright.

Jim didn't push. Whether it was because of his patience as a man of the cloth, or the knowledge of a hunter that knew what was out there in the dark. Whatever it was, John Winchester was determined to keep one step ahead of it, and he kept his boys so far hidden from the rest of the hunting world that most of the other people in the community didn't even know he had kids, let alone where they were at any given time.

They were good boys. Bright, talented and mischievous. Like Bobby Singer, Jim had always been astounded by Dean's devotion to his little brother. It made the pastor ache for his own brother, gone for such a long time, but never forgotten. Jim had been the little brother then, and sometimes he wondered if his brother had willingly gone to his death to make Jim's own rescue and resuscitation possible. He often wished to see the face of the sibling he had loved so much with his special gift, but like a cruel cosmic joke, that last moment in the water was the only time his brother had appeared to him.

Jim had been more successful earlier today, when John had brought his late wife's uncle to the church. He could tell that his old friend was painfully reluctant to ask Jim to spill more blood for his quest, but it was a sacrifice that the pastor had been more than willing to make after so many years of disappointment when it came to John's troubles.

It had taken a deep cut to his own wrist, now stitched and bandaged and aching, to finally summon the spirit of Samuel Campbell. There had been only a brief moment of contact, but it had been enough. Through the shaky veil between brothers, one word was passed from the other side. The name of the demon that had possessed Samuel at the time of his death.

Azazel.

Jim had heard the name before in scripture. Azazel was purported to be a fallen angel, which made an interesting story if it was now a demon, and an old one at that. The story of Azazel was at the very beginning of the bible, millennia ago.

For the first time, Jim began to understand the scope of how big this picture was. How deeply entrenched the small family now found themselves, in things that were difficult to understand, and why, possibly, the connection with Mary Winchester had been interrupted and ended so brutally.

John was predictably sitting in the nave of the church when Jim found him.

His friend, although not particularly religious, had often found comfort in the hard wood pews, surrounded by the heady scent of melting wax and the gentle flicker of candlelight. The light streaming in a kaleidoscope of colors refracted through the stained glass windows.

It was a peaceful place. One of refuge that Jim often enjoyed himself, even after all these years of ministering to his flock. It was where Jim took the people he was trying to help with his gift, and the last place that John had seen his wife's face. John often went to speak to her there, in the grasping hope that she could somehow hear his words.

John didn't indicate that he sensed Jim's presence, but the pastor wasn't fooled. His friend would have known that he was approaching well before he had even opened the heavy wood door to come inside. Walking quietly, he slipped into the pew to sit next to John.

"How's your arm?"

Jim looked down at his wrist and absently rubbed the bandage, a smile on his face.

"I've had worse from trying to rebuild the cabinets in my office."

It was a lie, and a poor one at that, but it broke the ice. John didn't need to feel more guilt than he already did about a multitude of things on a daily basis.

"Thanks."

"You don't need to thank me, John. I was happy to do it. You know that."

They were quiet while John fiddled with his wedding ring, exhaustion apparent in the lines on his face.

"You have a name now, my friend. It's progress."

"Yeah," John replied, sighing deeply. "Singer's already collecting books. I'm heading out in a minute. Just needed to gather my thoughts."

Another moment of silence passed, the only sound the occasional car passing by.

"What are you going to tell the boys?" Jim's voice was soft, but there was firm prodding behind it.

"Nothing," John replied. "Not until I know what I'm dealing with."

"John," Jim cautioned, putting a gentle hand on his friends arm, "They should know. Especially Sam."

"Not yet."

John's words were final. Not up for debate or scrutiny. He got up from the pew, patted his friend on the shoulder and strode out into the daylight without looking back.

/

Dean had really needed this hunt.

Even though he felt guilty as hell about leaving Sam home alone, sick and tired but on the mend, he missed the rush and overall feeling of satisfaction over taking another monstrous piece off the chess board.

Dad was doing better as well. The two of them were exactly alike in that way. The hunt had become an integral part of who they were as men, and there was an ever present gaping hole that needed to be filled during their down time. A good kill was the calm in their storms.

Honestly, Dean had been surprised to get the call. Dad had been so out of reach lately that the summons for a routine hunt was the last thing he had been expecting when he answered his phone on Friday. Six men had gone missing along the south western shore of Lake Superior, and Dad suspected it was the work of a selkie.

Ordinarily, John didn't like to take his boys along on hunts when they fit the profile of the vics, but there was minimal risk with this particular creature.

Selkies were almost unheard of in the states, and they tended to be passive shapeshifters, but this specific female had gone mad due to being stuck in a lake and unable to reach the seaway. She was repeatedly enticing men in the hopes they would take her home, and then getting vengeful when they didn't. It was the middle of the winter. The bodies were being found in the water. Drowned and frozen, with large claw marks shredding the chests.

Dean was itching for a gig, feeling a little cabin fever setting in. It had been over two months since the last time he had hunted with his father and Caleb for the zombies. Sammy was over his flu for the most part, and neither Dean nor their father wanted the kid playing wounded, so little brother was allowed to stay home with strict instructions to lay low and get better. On Saturday, Dean had called to check in with him once in the morning, and then again at night. Other than a little congestion, his little brother sounded okay.

Dean had been happy to play bait. They waited for late Saturday night, when no one else would be around the hunting ground. As soon as the selkie shifted into the body of a young woman and tried to drag Dean into the water, Dad had come out from his hiding spot behind a shed and shot her through the heart with a silver tipped arrow. Although not a particularly difficult hunt, the satisfaction remained the same.

It would have been okay for Dean to leave first thing Sunday morning to head back to South Dakota. The hunt was over. Monster terminated. It was the look on John's face that had his oldest son hanging around a little longer than normal.

Dad was preoccupied.

Acting more on edge than normal, and considering the last few months, that was really saying something. Several times John had started to speak, only to change his mind. Dean had been hoping that if he just stayed quiet but present, eventually his father might confide in what had him so bothered, but by late Sunday afternoon, the older man was still acting close lipped, almost angry but still stubbornly silent, and Dean couldn't delay his departure for home any longer. He wanted to get Sammy fed with a good breakfast in the morning before heading back to school.

It was beginning to feel like his father was upset with him for some reason, and that notion made Dean decidedly uncomfortable, wondering if his father could sense his slightly lessening faith.

Dad had walked back with Dean to the car as he was getting ready to leave, an indecipherable expression on his bearded face. Dean had reflexively stiffened, fearing a sharp rebuke for some unknown offense, years of being on the receiving end of John's ever unpredictable mood swings making him nervous.

He had thought that the weekend had gone well, but when his father had approached him, the older man's demeanor was distinctly giving the impression of discomfort. John didn't speak for a moment, increasing his oldest son's unease and almost causing Dean to miss the quiet words that he first spoke.

"Sammy seems really happy these days, Son," John muttered, his eyes cast down to the pavement of the parking lot. "You're doing a real good job with him."

Dean had taken in a sharp breath in surprise. The sharpness stemming from both the rare compliment as well as the horrific realization of what that admission was costing his father in pride. He knew without being told that Dad was more or less admitting that Dean was better at parenting Sammy than John was himself.

In his wildest dreams he wouldn't imagine trying to show John up in anything. His dad was Dean's living breathing hero and he would rather cut off his own arm than do something to make John feel less than himself in any way. Of course, after all of their years on the road with John running off to one hunt or another, Dean did have more actual experience in the day to day care of the youngest Winchester, but it was a topic that was never openly admitted to in conversation.

Switching gears to his usual mask of bravado, Dean swallowed past the lump in his throat and pasted a smart ass smirk on his face.

"Nah, not really. The kid gives me grief all the time. You're the good cop now," he assured his father.

John laughed softly for a second, the smile on his face not quite reaching his eyes. Regardless of what Dean thought, he knew both of his sons too well to be fooled by his firstborn's attempts to reassure him that he was anything more than a drill sergeant to them most of the time, the recent holidays aside.

Although it could be difficult to show them, he loved both of his boys with an intensity that frightened him sometimes, which only fueled his driving passion to do whatever needed to be done to keep them safe.

Even if it came at the cost of their love for him.

In less than five months time, his twenty-two year old son had managed to somehow tame Sammy's rebellious streak that John had been ripping his hair out over for years. Sammy had been respectful, enthusiastic, attentive and affectionate. Things that he had not been with any real regularity since he was eight and, truthfully, John had never again expected to see.

Sure, part of Sammy's compliance could be a result of not wanting to endanger John's agreement to the year off the road, but the kid was genuinely happy these days.

Anyone could see that.

"Besides," Dean had continued, somewhat uncomfortably, "he's come down with some bug. Again. I'm not sure how this keeps happening. I'm sorry, Dad."

John, saddened by his eldest's painfully guilty admission, turned to give the boy a good hard look. Sure enough, Dean's eyes were downcast as he was prone to do whenever he felt responsible for something going wrong and was expecting a rebuke. John inwardly swore, not for the first time, his oft repeated commands to Dean to keep his brother safe biting him in the ass.

Was Dean really taking the blame for the flu?

He had never meant to make the kid feel like he had to protect Sammy from everything.

"Dean, this isn't the first or last time your brother is going to get a little cold, or whatever it is. You can't take that on yourself," he scolded, using the commanding alpha male voice that Dean had always responded best to.

"Sam's old enough to know how to avoid getting sick when he can help it," John said firmly.

Dean had nodded, somewhat jerkily, and John could tell that his son was not entirely convinced of the sincerely of his words. Frustrated, he tried a different approach.

"Dude, you boys caught everything under the sun growing up. Do you blame me for that?"

Those words did get Dean's awareness and he immediately snapped back to attention, a look of horror on his face.

"No, sir! Of course not."

John allowed himself a small smile at his son's sudden insistence and Dean, sensing an ease in the tension, grinned sheepishly at his old man. His father didn't say anything, just grabbed him in a very quick half hug and opened the driver's side door of the Impala for him. Dean noticed, with a small smile, the way John's hand still reverently stroked the handle of the classic car, reminding him that the old girl had been his father's baby before she had been his.

"Get going, you got a long trip back."

Dean had nodded and slipped in behind the wheel, the happiness he always felt driving washing over him. He gave his father one last nod, the unspoken communication between them filled with the emotional words neither one of them were any good at speaking out loud. When he pulled out of the parking lot, his father was still standing in watch over his departure, hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans, keeping an eye on his boy for as long as he could before Dean disappeared again.

Maybe he had been overreacting, maybe not, but Dean knew to his very bones that his father had entrusted both of his babies to Dean, and it wasn't a responsibility that he took lightly.

/

Sam had grown close to three inches since his father bought him a suit last year. It had been barely serviceable for the homecoming dance in the fall, but even now, just a few months later, it was so ridiculously short that Sam couldn't allow himself to be seen in it.

Getting dressed at the motel in Palo Alto that morning, he eventually decided on just a white button down shirt and his school khakis. Dean had taken him shopping a week before the second semester started because his three pairs of khakis that had been bought in August were also looking very high water-ish.

He had needed new pants, plain and simple. Now that winter had set in he was wearing the embossed school v-neck pullovers instead of the polo shirts, and so they had also bought a few dress shirts to wear underneath the sweaters, as well as the two striped school ties.

He gave a passing thought to adding the tie, but decided against it. It might be a little more formal, and made a better impression, or it might just look like he was trying too hard. Either way, it made him uncomfortable and he was having enough trouble suppressing his lingering congested coughs, so the last thing he needed was something choking his neck during the interview.

He was nervous enough as it was.

When Mr. Hopkins had called him back into his office with the news that Stanford wanted Sam to come for an interview for a possible scholarship, Sam had almost outright dismissed it. Things were going really well at home with his family, and the youngest Winchester was less than enthused about stirring up trouble.

He knew it would be a privilege and an honor to even be accepted at such a prestigious university, let alone be offered a chance to study there for free. When he originally sent out the application, it had almost been as a joke. Something humorous he could say to himself like yeah, once I had this dumb idea that I could get a full ride to this awesome school.

Now that he knew how serious the school was about admitting him, it was a little terrifying to be honest.

Mr. Hopkins had all but assured Sam that he would be offered a place. These interviews weren't offered to applicants that were going to be rejected, and the bright boy had a very good chance to be given the world on a plate. No small feat for a kid that came from a disadvantaged home where academic excellence wasn't actively pushed. He strongly encouraged Sam to take every chance he could get to make the best life possible for himself.

Realistically, Sam knew that his father and brother would never willingly take him all the way to California for an interview at a college he wouldn't be allowed to attend in the first place. Dean might be up for a road trip to a beach and some girls in a bikini, but it's not like Sam could just slip away from him long enough to head to the school's campus and have an official meeting.

As far as his father was concerned, John would dismiss the notion completely, and probably lock Sam in his room until his eighteenth birthday just to make sure his son didn't get any more bright ideas that would separate him from the family business.

Still, Sam hadn't turned the interview down either. As far as the scholarship committee was concerned, Samuel Winchester of Sioux Falls, South Dakota was expected in their conference room bright and early at nine a.m. Monday morning of February twenty-sixth.

Sam had that appointment set up for almost two weeks, keeping it to himself as a deep, dark secret that ate away at him day and night, and it showed. He knew that Dean could tell that something was bothering him, and it was a sort of "lucky" break when he caught the flu again, because at least being sick gave him a reason to brush off his brother's concerns of something mental in favor of something physical.

It didn't help that Mr. Hopkins would see him in the halls and grin, repeatedly asking him if he was getting nervous, and then attempting to boost his confidence by assuring him that everything would go well. Right now Sam was lying to just about everyone in his life, including himself, and he was starting to crack under the pressure.

As Sam's health improved, and the day drew nearer, the reality that he was going to have to do something, and quickly, was breathing down his neck like a freight train. He had been putting off confessing to his brother as long as he could, and he had just about decided that he needed to bite the bullet and tell Dean what was going on when his brother got the summons from Dad to help out on the selkie hunt. A hunt where an under-the-weather Sam wasn't required to participate.

It was almost too good to be true.

Palo Alto was a twenty-seven hour drive from Sioux Falls. Sam could easily drive twelve to fourteen hours a day, just about all he would be able to do considering that he was still feeling like crap most of the time. Dean was leaving Friday night to meet their father in Wisconsin, and he wouldn't be back until sometime on Sunday. Sam would be long gone by then, and by the time Dean found out where he was, it would be too late for his big brother to stop him from getting to the interview first thing Monday morning.

It was duplicitous and wrong.

Sam knew that as soon as he had to confess to his brother where he was, all Hell was going to break loose. Dean was going to be furious.

And worried.

And hurt, most of all.

He would see Sam's actions as nothing less than the ultimate betrayal for all of the hard work Dean had done to give his little brother this very special year away from the veritable crap fest that usually encompassed their lives on the road.

Worst of all, Dean would have to tell Dad that Sam had taken off again the minute his big brother wasn't around to keep an eye on him. Sam knew that his father was going to be beyond pissed at Sam himself for going out on his own. He didn't even want to think of the explosive level of fallout that he was going to have to endure once John came home to deal with him. Dad was probably going to need to buy a new belt by the time he was done expressing his displeasure on Sam's ass.

But it wasn't really himself that Sam was worried about.

Dean would end up taking the brunt of their father's wrath, as he always did, because that was just how John reacted whenever something went pear shaped when his boys were anywhere without him.

Considering how much Sam's big brother lived for their father's approval, it was going to be shattering for him. Dad would see the whole thing as a failure on Dean's part, even if it was Sam who was being the sneaky, disobedient one. That knowledge alone should have kept Sam in the house, with a kind letter sent to the committee, thanking them for their consideration and an apology for taking up their time.

That would be the right thing to do here.

But the part of Sam that had spent so many hours over the course of so many years working his ass off, specifically for a chance like this, couldn't brush off the opportunity.

He couldn't.

Even though Sam knew that he would realistically eventually settle for one of the two lesser colleges to keep the peace with his family, the part of him that strove for so much more than the mediocre that had defined their lives had to know if he really had it in him to be the best.

Doing this, going behind his family's backs, was going to absolutely torpedo the rest of his school year. He knew that without being told, and had already accepted that it was the price he was going to need to pay. If he got into his car, the very one that his family had lovingly and thoughtfully built for him, he needed to have already made his peace with the knowledge that life, as he currently knew it, would be over.

There would be no forgiveness for this, and no second chances. Trust would be broken, and the ensuing ramifications would insure that he was never given the opportunity to run off again from his brother's custody.

In the end it was the overall unfairness of the situation that finally decided the matter for him.

In normal families, Sam would be praised and encouraged for earning this chance at such a prize. He would have a father that was beaming with pride as they drove to Stanford's manicured campus and walked to the conference room together, with Dad giving him a confident grin and a pat on the back for good luck as he went in to dazzle the committee members with his hard work and dedication.

Later, after an interview that went better than Sam could have hoped for, his big brother would take him out for a congratulatory beer, bought on the sly, and they could talk about all of the pretty California girls that Sam could flirt with while he attended classes at one of the most elite schools in the country.

Sam shouldn't have to sneak out, like a thief in the night, as if this dream was something to be ashamed of, and that is what finally pushed him to the conclusion that he was going to take the shot while he could get it and deal with the consequences later.

Dean would eventually forgive him, especially if Sam could make sure that his brother knew he was okay. His brother's main concern was Sam's safety, and as long as he could ease Dean's mind about that, chances were they could talk it out.

Not that Dean would let him get off easy.

Long before Dad got a hold of him, Sam would be on lock down so deep he might never see sunlight again. Which would be a moot point when his father came home and killed his youngest son, but at least Sam would not live with the regret of never even having tried.

He had enough money saved for gas and a couple of nights at a motel. Dean kept emergency cash in a book on the third shelf of the bookcase in the living room. Sam could borrow some of that for whatever he couldn't pay for himself.

Honestly, he felt pretty bad about grabbing that.

Probably more so than any of the other deceitful things he was doing. His brother worked really hard for his money now. It wasn't as easy as simply hustling, and Sam felt pretty shitty about taking it without asking. Dean would have more than willingly given it if Sam had asked, but since he couldn't tell his brother why, Sam was now officially the kid that stole from his own brother.

Before the sun was even up that Saturday morning, Sam jumped out of bed, already packed and ready to go. He printed out the route and directions for the campus and shoved them into his backpack. Earlier in the week he had made an approximate schedule that he wanted to keep to, to ensure maximum efficiency for the drive there and back. He would miss two days of school, but Mr. Hopkins had already made arrangements with the attendance office to excuse him.

They would still call Dean first thing Monday morning, but by then his brother would know from Sam himself that he wasn't coming home until late Tuesday.

Grabbing the emergency cash and leaving a note on the refrigerator, Sam threw his things in the Camaro and headed west.

/

All things considered, Dean was in a pretty good mood when he made the turn onto their street just before ten o'clock Sunday evening.

Although his father still was stonewalling him with information on what was really going on in his life, the hunt had been successful, and just being with his dad for a couple of days settled Dean's nerves. He wasn't ashamed to admit that his father's physical presence could lessen the weight of responsibility that Dean always carried around with him. For just a little while, Dean could relax and let Dad drive the bus.

Sam was sounding better, his congestion still noticeable but lessening, when Dean had called him a few hours earlier, so the big brother wasn't feeling as guilty for leaving him behind when he wasn't one hundred percent. Truthfully, it was probably a good thing for them both to have some time away on occasion. He loved his brother, but that didn't mean they didn't need some space from time to time. Dad hadn't minded letting his younger son stay behind, so it hadn't been an issue.

To make up for his absence, Dean was bringing home the Compact Oxford English Dictionary that Sammy had been salivating over, having made a special stop at a bookstore in Minneapolis just to acquire it.

The title was complete bullshit, because the thing weighed a ton and there was absolutely nothing compact about it. It also cost a small fortune, but Dean had managed to hustle two obnoxious preppy dicks at the bar he had hit with Dad the night before. He had been happy to take their money, and it was only fitting that he use it to buy something fancy for his own little geek boy.

Sam was going to flip his shit when he saw it, and that put a smile on his big brother's face as he went to pull into their driveway.

The first thing that was glaringly apparent, was the fact that Sam's car wasn't in the driveway. Dean wasn't ready to completely freak out just yet, but that didn't stop him from jumping out of the Impala and racing into the house. He ran inside and yelled for his brother, heart thudding in fear until he noticed the light on in the kitchen.

They had a message board on the fridge that they used for communication on the rare occasions that they weren't home at the same time, so it was the first thing Dean checked. As soon as he saw the message, Dean's anxiety kicked back down to a more manageable level.

Everything is fine

Give me a call when you get this

\- Sam

Dean's fingers were still a little shaky when he hit speed dial 1 on his phone, and it wasn't until he heard his little brother's voice that his adrenaline started to recede.

"Hey Dean."

"Sammy, where are you?" Dean was trying to keep the fear out of his voice, but he wasn't doing a very good job.

"Don't get mad, okay?"

And there went Dean's attempts to be calm.

"Where are you, Sam?"

There was a pause, which did nothing to help Dean's nerves, and when Sam spoke again, he could hear the trembling in his brother's voice.

"California."

For a moment, Dean feared he had gone temporarily insane, because he thought for sure that his little brother had just told him that he was halfway across the country, and that was ridiculous. His little brother would never do something that monumentally stupid.

He took a deep breath and tried to level out his voice, even though the blood was rushing so fast through his head it was almost making him dizzy.

"Please tell me that's the name of a new club in town that you were foolish enough to leave the house and go visit with your friends. Please, Sammy. Tell me that."

Another pause, and Sam's voice was tiny and shaky.

"I'm at a motel just outside of San Francisco."

Dean dropped into one of the new kitchen chairs and raked his fingers through his hair. He clenched his eyes shut tight and struggled to keep his temper in check.

"I'm fine, Dean. Really. Everything is okay."

Neither of them spoke for a couple of minutes, the empty air between them crackling with tense static. When Dean came back on the line, his voice was deceptively calm and deep.

"Is this another Flagstaff, Sam?"

"No! Dean, I swear. I haven't taken off. I just needed to do something and I'll be back on Tuesday night. I promise."

"Do what, Sam. What is so fucking important you had to take off behind my back and drive all the way to California without telling me?"

There was another minute of empty air, and the silence only served to fuel the flames of anger burning up Dean's chest as painful memories of the last time Sam had taken off without warning flooded his brain.

"It's nothing dangerous," came the only response, as if saying that made it okay

"Great," Dean spit out, a red haze of rage descending over his eyes. "Then tell me what it is, because I'm telling you right now, Sam. I'm not really in a forgiving mood at the moment."

"I can't right now. Just…trust me. Please? I'm okay and I'll be back soon."

Dean felt a bubble of laughter burst from his lungs, and he pinched his nose as a monster of a headache began to announce it's presence.

"Trust you? Yeah, I don't think so. That ship's not only sailed, but it sank two miles out to sea. You're gonna need to do better than that, Sammy."

"Look," and Dean could hear the let's talk about this like rational adults tone in his brother's voice.

The one that pissed him right the fuck off.

"I'm heading back home late tomorrow morning. I will call you as many times a day as you want me to until I'm back, so you know where I am and that I'm perfectly fine."

Dean had just about had enough of the stonewalling from both of the members of his family and, quite frankly, he was well and truly sick of it. Holding his phone between his ear and shoulder, he grabbed the large atlas from the shelf in the computer alcove and began to flip pages, mentally calculating drive time in his head.

"Dean, I know you're pissed, and I know that I'm in big trouble, but can we just settle this when I get back?"

The older brother ignored the voice on the phone that was getting increasingly more worried as he plotted his route. When he spoke again, his voice was in control, scarily calm and cold as ice.

"This is what is gonna happen. You're gonna meet me in Elko, Nevada tomorrow. You will not drive back here alone. You will not pass go. You will not collect two hundred dollars. You are going to get your ass to the motel of my choosing and you are going to call me every two hours starting at eight a.m."

"I have to be somewhere at nine." Sam whispered, and it sounded like the kid might cry.

"Every...two...hours, Samuel. Figure it the fuck out. You hear me?"

He could hear the sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line. Probably because in seventeen years, Dean had never used his brother's full name in anger. Good. The kid should be scared.

"Yes."

"Do not make me have to come find you."

"Okay." There was another small pause, and Dean could hear the shaky breathing on the other side. "I'm sorry."

Dean didn't respond. He ended the call with a vicious stab at his phone and felt his pulse speeding up as the reality of just how fucked he was at the moment took hold. He repeatedly raked his hands through his hair and tried to focus his eyes as his vision went blurry.

Chest heaving and feeling like he was drowning, he grabbed the farm table with both hands and flipped it, sending everything that had been on top flying across the room.

"SON OF A BITCH!"

/

Sam was physically and mentally exhausted when he pulled into the motel parking lot in Elko.

He had no idea what was waiting for him inside. He had never heard his brother sound like he had on the phone before. Too much like their father, and the chillingly close resemblance had created icy tendrils of fear that were gripping Sam's heart and threatening to squeeze it until he couldn't breathe anymore.

Dean could be a frightening person when he chose to be. It was the natural reaction of living the life of a hunter. When you spent your life tracking down and killing real evil, mentally it had to take you to a place where you evolved into something else entirely out of necessity. Sam had seen it on his brother's face and in his eyes. Heard it in his voice.

The cold, emotionless surety that there was only going to be one outcome from your entanglement with him, and it was going to be at the expense of your life.

That voice had never been directed at Sam before, and honestly, it was scaring the shit out of him.

Not that he didn't logically know that he didn't need to be genuinely afraid of his big brother. On a conscious level, he knew that Dean would never really hurt him in any profound way. He was sure that his brother was going to be furious and rage about it forever, and Sam had expected that. Had known as soon as he made his decision to make the trip that the repercussions were going to be severe and long lasting.

That was the bargain he had made with himself the minute he conceived of the idea to carry out such a monumentally bold and wholly disobedient plan. Now it was time to pay the piper, at least with his brother, and Sam was going to have to man up and take it.

There was a slight tremble to his hand as he took the keys out of the ignition, and he shook it out, trying to calm down. He pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly, like Dad had showed him, to slow his rapid heart rate. Sam couldn't afford to be a nervous, hysterical wreck when he faced his brother. It didn't help his case that he was adult enough to have made this trip alone if he started to shake like a scared child as soon as he stood in Dean's presence.

Somehow, he managed to get out of the car without fumbling and he reached into the back seat and grabbed his duffel. It was dark, and he was cold and tired. Hungry and weary and still congested and he just wanted to get this over with and crawl into a bed.

By the time he has his things gathered and the car doors locked, Dean was standing in the open doorway of the motel room, his arms crossed and his face a complete blank.

It was the total absence of emotion on his brother's face that unnerved Sam. Not anger or worry, hostility or fear. Just smooth, pale lack of response, and although his brother was now two inches shorter, Dean's much wider and broader form was every bit as implacable, intimidating and firm as their father's had ever been.

It was more than disconcerting, and Sam felt his face pale.

As Sam approached, Dean shifted ever so slightly to gave the younger brother a fraction of space to slip through the open door and into the room. Sam noticed Uncle Bobby sitting in one the chairs at the kitchenette table and immediately knew why he was there. He could feel Dean's hot breath on his neck, bearing down on him, or at least that's what it felt like at the moment. Sam's blood was rushing so fast, it could have been a product of his wild imagination.

He turned just enough to cast a side glance at his brother, before pulling the car keys out of his pocket and handing them over to his silent sibling. Sam gave a passing thought as to when or if he would ever see them again, and the ache in the pit of his stomach lurched over his sadness.

Dean tossed them to Uncle Bobby, who caught them easily and got up from his chair. The older man shook his head at Sam, a mixture of sadness and irritation, and he clapped Dean on the back as he headed to the door and left. Outside, Sam could hear Cherry's engine roaring to life and then fade in the distance.

Legs trembling, Sam managed to keep standing straight as his brother circled in front of him. Long angry strides that ratcheted Sam's tension to stratospheric levels. So far Dean had been completely silent, and the younger brother wished that he would just start yelling already since the tense quiet was a million times worse. He waits, thinking the wisest course of action right now would be to keep quiet, but after the fifth time Dean passes in front of him, he can't take it anymore.

"Dean..."

It's like kicking a beehive.

Before Sam even knows what's happening, Dean's rounding on him and Sam is rocked back on his feet by a solid punch to the left side of his jaw. Stars explode in his eyes and blood rushes to his head as he reflexively begins to put himself in a defensive block, but then he stops himself. Knowing that he probably deserved that punch, and any other one his brother wants to throw at him. He forces his arms to his sides and racks his shoulders back, staring straight ahead and ready to take whatever is coming next without flinching.

Dean has never hit him in anger before. Not really. They've tussled on occasion, like most brothers at one point or another. But they have been trained to be warriors, and their father never allowed them to go at each other full bore because they were taught how to inflict maximum damage.

It's not just the punch that startles Sam. It's the unrestrained force behind it and the absolutely cold look in his brother's eyes as he delivers it. While the pain spreads on his jaw, tears of shock and hurt spring to Sam's eyes without his consent and he's ashamed of himself for showing so much weakness.

Dean is panting hard now, the discipline required to stop him from raising his fist again taking every bit of control he can summon. Sam is standing, but he's trembling, his mouth quivering, working hard to not cry. Looking pale and sick and so damn young, and it's killing Dean to see him like this.

There's a flush of red blooming on Sam's cheek where Dean's fist has connected, and the big brother inside of Dean is disgusted with himself for being the one to put it there. Even if the little bastard deserves it, it doesn't mean that Dean is okay with being the one responsible. There is a war going on in his mind, and the fury in him builds for being put in this position in the first place.

Right now, he would really love to finish kicking Sam's ass, but he resists the urge, afraid that he will be unable to stop if he starts. A million nightmare scenarios had played out in his mind during the eighteen hour drive here and his nerves are shattered. He could really hurt Sam at this moment if he doesn't calm the fuck down.

Instead, he grits his teeth and yanks open their first aid kit. He pulls out a cold pack and snaps it until the chemicals inside activate. Crossing the room, he holds it out for the little bitch, not trusting himself to say a word.

Stupidly, Sam refuses it at first, his injured pride bringing out his inner asshole. Dean growls dangerously and thrusts it in the kid's face. Sam will either use it or have it shoved someplace uncomfortable.

"Take it," Dean hisses and waits until the kid wises up and gingerly pulls it out of his hand. Sam holds it up against his cheek and he looks so wrecked that a small part of Dean's anger recedes.

"I'm sorry," Sam mutters quietly, eyes dragging to the floor, unable to face is brother.

"Shut your fucking mouth, Sam!" Dean snaps back at him, and Sam recoils a little from the vehemence in his brother's voice, but Dean is not done with him.

"You're a selfish little bastard, you know that? You don't care about anyone but yourself. Do you even give a shit about how worried I've been?"

Sam turns his head away to face the wall so Dean can't see the tears continuing to well up in his eyes. He presses the cold pack tighter to his face and nods slightly. Wisely, he keeps quiet until Dean's pacing stops. Knowing that this means that his brother's anger level is starting to lower, he pushes his luck and whispers another barely audible apology as his tears fall.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, voice teary with misery. "I thought if I left that note and kept in contact with you, you wouldn't worry."

Dean's eyes blazed fury as he got right in his little brother's face.

"I left you home alone, because you said you were sick and I trusted you to stay there and rest instead of bringing you along with me to Dad. You stood there and you lied right to my face, and then you lied every time I called you all weekend."

Sam's shoulders, normally hunched anyway in the presence of his father and brother, turned even more into themselves as he stared pleadingly as his enraged brother.

"I know. I'm sorry."

Dean huffed and smiled. The same cold smile that didn't make it anywhere near his fire in his eyes.

"Yeah, so you keep saying."

He started pacing again, rubbing his face with his hand repeatedly, and Sam could see that he was trying to get his anger under control. Sam reached up and brushed the tears off his cheeks, trying not to be obvious. His brother had always hated to see him cry, and Sam wasn't going to give Dean another reason to be upset.

Dean wasn't fooled.

He could see his little brother breaking and it killed him. Sam looked like he hadn't slept in days. Pale and weak, as if he might collapse any minute. The kid had never driven a trip like that solo. It took stamina that needed to be built up over time, and he really had been ill already. Which meant that he probably hadn't been eating well either.

Dean might still be completely pissed off and hurt beyond measure, but he wasn't cruel. Sam needed food and sleep before anything else, and honestly, if Dean had to spend one more minute with him in the same room, he might explode again.

"Take a hot shower. You look like shit," he growled, not looking directly at his brother. "When I come back, your ass better be sitting at this table. You hear me?"

Dean glanced up quickly, just enough to see Sam nod, still looking at the wall. Grabbing his jacket and the keys to the Impala he stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Sam stood motionless for a few seconds after his brother's departure. He had expected Dean to be angry, no doubt, but he had wildly underestimated just how much. Dean had been known to lash out when he was scared, but then he would calm down and let it go once whatever had frightened him had passed.

Sam could understand his brother being afraid of something happening to Sam while out on the road alone, but he was here safe and sound, and some stupid part of him assumed that Dean would relax as soon as he saw for himself that Sam was perfectly okay.

He would still be pissed no doubt, and probably lock Sam in the house for the rest of the school year, but Sam wasn't expecting that coldness in his face. His brother was looking at him with hate in his eyes and he wasn't sure how he was going to make that right again.

The idea of a hot shower sounded really good at the moment. Sam tossed the ice pack into the small freezer section of the motel room's mini-fridge and headed into the bathroom. He turned the hot water nozzle all the way up and used the toilet while the water warmed, stripping his clothes off and taking a good look at his face in the mirror.

There was a bruise developing on his cheek and he felt a second of irritation that he was going to have to use the concealer trick when he went back to school. Skin tone makeup was the go-to method of coping for abused wives and children everywhere, and also of young hunters who didn't want to end up in foster care. It wouldn't be the first time.

The room was filled with steam by the time he was done checking the damage. He stepped into the bath and let the hot water cascade over him and, for the first time in almost two days, he felt like he was warming up. It was also loosening up the mucus in his lungs and he started to cough out blobs, spitting them down the drain as he washed.

He would have stayed in there for an hour, but he didn't want to piss his brother off anymore than the nuclear level he was at already, so after fifteen minutes, he shut the water and toweled off. Stepping back into the now relative chilliness of the room, he grabbed boxers, pajama pants, a long sleeved tee and his warm hoodie from his duffel and dressed quickly, trying to retain his recently found warmth. He thought about turning on the television, because Dean usually liked having it on, but decided against it.

Maybe if the room was quiet, they could start to talk this out.

He sat down at the table, like he was told, and waited in the quiet of the empty room. Scanning the walls, they reminded him of every single shit hole motel room he had ever stayed at in his life. It never changed, this life. No matter what he did, or how much they worked towards normal, Sam would always end up in a room just like this one. That was why he needed out and, someday, he would find the right words to make his brother understand that.

It was another twenty minutes before Dean returned. He didn't look cold or angry anymore, which should have been a relief, but the blank mask on his face was somehow worse. Like a stranger wearing his brother's body, and the effect was disconcerting. Dean dumped a bag on the table and pulled out containers of Chinese take-out, placing a quart dish of hot and sour soup and a white cardboard container of low mein noodles in front of Sam.

"Eat. Then hit the rack. We're leaving early to head back."

The words were flat. Emotionless. Perfunctory. So different from the warm, cocky, friendly tone of his big brother.

Sam thought about refusing and just getting into bed, but Dean was staring at him, temper simmering and waiting for compliance. Not wanting to pick another fight, Sam opened the soup and gulped down a small spoonful. Once Dean seemed assured that his little brother was eating, he moved over to the couch and sat back, turning on the TV, but keeping the volume low.

Whether it was because Dean's anger was receding, or because he was on big brother auto pilot, Sam couldn't help noticing that he brought back Sam's favorite comfort food for times when he was sick. Hot and sour soup that relieved the sinus pressure of his nasal passages and let him breathe easier. Slippery low mein noodles that could be easily swallowed without paining a sore throat. It was a gesture of concern and kindness.

"Thanks."

Dean looked over at him and, for the briefest of seconds, Sam swore he saw a flash of hurt in his brother's eyes, but it flickered out quickly. Dean nodded briefly and returned his attention to a repeat of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which they boys found amusing due to the nature of the premise. Normally watching Sarah Michelle Geller in action made Dean smile, but not tonight.

Sam managed to eat half of the food that was put in front of him. He had been hungry, but his exhaustion was winning at the moment. Not ready to get into bed just yet, he braved his brother's ire by heading over to the couch and sitting on the opposite end from Dean, tucking his legs up underneath him. His brother had been quiet for the past twenty minutes, and Sam was ready to risk talking to him again.

"I really am sor..,"

"Stop it, Sam," Dean interrupted, more weary than pissed now. "Saying you're sorry doesn't change things."

And Sam nodded to himself, knowing that words of apology were going to fall flat with his brother for a while.

"I still feel bad you came all the way out here," he said quietly. "I would have been okay to get home on my own."

Dean was shaking his head, like he couldn't believe the stupidity of Sam's words, and the younger brother felt a small twinge of frustration, because Dean was going to have to accept, pretty soon, that Sam was going to be making his own decisions in the near future, without asking for permission.

Although, for now, his brother still had authority over him, and Sam had to acknowledge that.

"So how long am I grounded?"

Sam wasn't expecting the derisive snort that came out of his brother's mouth, or the irritation in his eyes. Dean was shaking his head again, as if he was dealing with recalcitrant toddler.

"As if you give a shit about what I tell you to do," Dean sneered. "Why start now? You're just going to do what you want to anyway."

"Dean, c'mon, man," Sam tried to reason, feeling even more guilty, "That's not true."

Now his brother turned to him and his eyes flared angry again.

"Yeah, it is. No matter what I do for you. No matter how many times I fight for you. Or how many times I've gone to bat for you with Dad, you don't appreciate a goddamn thing."

Dean rubbed his face and got up, shutting the television off.

"You're happy to let me do everything to get you what you want, but you have no problem shitting all over my trust if stands in your way. Do you any idea of what it took to get Dad...you know what? Never mind."

"I do appreciate what you do," Sam protested, feeling his face flush again. "Everything. The guilt of it all eats me up sometimes." And there was painful truth to those words.

Now Dean turned again and smiled, lips pursed in a sinister sneer. "Oh yeah. I could really tell just how much when I got back to the home I tried to make for us and found you gone. Again."

"I told you, Dean. I had to go," Sam muttered quietly, averting his gaze to avoid seeing the pain on his brother's face."

"Oh yeah," Dean said coldly. "And exactly where was that again?"

Sam didn't answer. Couldn't answer, because he knew that to do so would only make things worse than they already were.

They didn't speak for a minute while Dean cleaned up the take-out containers and Sam fiddled with the remote.

"What did Dad say when you told him?"

And Dean laughed again, in a way that was really beginning to rattle Sam.

"I didn't tell Dad."

Sam's eyes went wide, because it wasn't like his brother to not immediately inform their father of anything this big. Generally at length and in painfully minute detail.

"He's not answering again?" Sam asked, now worried. "Do you think he's okay?"

"He's fine," Dean answered, and his voice was tired. "I talked to him this morning."

Sam shook his head, confused and disbelieving.

"So why did..."

His brother wheeled around quickly and grabbed Sam by the shoulder and got right into his face.

"Why? Seriously?" Dean huffed and shoved Sam away hard, pushing him roughly against the back of the sofa. "Man. And you're supposed to be the smart one."

"Don't do that," Sam mumbled, looking down at the floor."

"Do what?"

Sam swept his eyes back up and frowned at his brother.

"Don't talk about yourself like you're not smarter than I am. I hate that."

On another day, those words might have cracked Dean's hard outer shell, but tonight they just seemed hollow to his ears. If Sam thought that Dean was smarter than he was, the little shit wouldn't have pulled a fast one on him, and the notion just pissed Dean off further.

He contemplated just getting into bed and ignoring his little brother, but he didn't. It was taking more energy than he had in him to maintain his level of anger. Sam, for all of his freaky brains, had no idea of how much trouble he caused, but maybe he should.

"Dad wouldn't have settled for whipping your ass and putting you on lock down for this, Sam," he spat out, getting back in the kid's face. "He'd be packing up the house right now, and you'd be cuffed to his fucking truck until you were collecting social security! Don't you get that?"

"But, Uncle Bobby..."

"Bobby isn't going to say shit," Dean snapped. "So, congratulations. You just made liars out of both of us."

"Dean," Sam began, realization dawning on him. "I'm..."

"Sam, if you say you're sorry one more time, I'm going to punch your fucking face again. You get me?"

Dean raked his hand through his spiked hair and shut his eyes tightly.

"Just go to bed already. I can't do this anymore."

Sam caught himself before he apologized again, and simply nodded, getting into the bed on the far side of the wall and rolling over, pulling the blankets up as far as he could. He could hear Dean washing up in the bathroom before shutting the lights off and climbing into his own bed.

Neither of them really slept that night.

Dean woke him up at six in the morning, eager to get going for the eighteen hour drive back to Sioux Falls. By the time Sam was dressed and out of the bathroom, he noticed that the pillows and comforter that had been on his bed were gone and so were the duffels. Dean came back in the room and gave it a quick once over.

"Let's go."

Putting on his coat, Sam followed his brother outside and went to open the passenger door, when Dean stopped him.

"You're in the back."

Startled, Sam frowned. "What? Why?"

"You didn't sleep."

Sam looked in the back and saw that the motel bedding had been arranged on the rear seat. He wasn't sure if it was a gesture of kindness or a punishment exile. Probably a bit of both.

"Can't we just talk," he asked quietly, a note of pleading in his voice. This distance between them was killing him.

"Sure, Sam," Dean responded, too brightly to be genuine. "Where'd you go this weekend?"

The younger brother sighed. "I'll tell you. I promise. Just not today."

Dean just shook his head and scoffed. "Well, that's all I wanna talk about today. So get your ass in the back and get some sleep so I can drive already."

Neither of them was going to budge. Sam knew it, and any attempt to keep up this line of conversation was just going to make things worse, and it was going to be a tough day as it was. He opted for the coward's way out and climbed into the back and laid down.

It was a long trip back.

They only stopped a few times for coffee, fuel, fast food and to use the restroom. Dean didn't say a word, and Sam didn't push, even when he climbed into the passenger seat in the front after their last stop and his brother allowed it. Dean just kept the music playing, although he kept the volume down, and Sam knew he was doing it out of consideration for Sam's still present flu symptoms.

It was these subtle ever-present gestures of kindness and affection that kept Sam's chest pounding with guilt and hurt. Even pissed off, his big brother was his big brother, and Sam didn't want to keep upsetting him with his silence, but telling the truth would be so much worse. There was just simply no reason to hurt Dean with the idea that Sam was even considering to go to California.

Right now, Sam was just a lying and inconsiderate little asshole, and Dean would be able to forgive that after a while. What he wouldn't be able to forgive was a betrayal and abandonment, and until Sam had an offer, he wasn't going to break his brother's heart.

It was dark and late when they finally made it back home. Dean had to be hurting from all the hours behind the wheel. As strong and durable as he was, he was still human and needed rest, but he didn't give any indication that he was as wrecked as Sam knew he had to be.

Sam snapped on the overhead light in the living room when they got inside, ready to put his things down and head straight to bed when Dean's cold voice stopped him.

"Two weeks. No car. No phone. No computer and no study group. You're at school, you're at home and in bed by nine. Period."

Sam glanced at his brother for a second. Could see the tiredness in his eyes and the hurt pinch of his forehead.

"Okay."

He turned towards the stairs and was stopped again. This time his brother's voice was quiet and watery.

"You could have told me. Told me anything. I would have taken you, no questions asked. You didn't have to run, Sam. Not from me." Dean looked up at him, and Sam could see the shimmer of wetness in his brother's eyes. "I've always had your back. I hope it was worth it."

Then Dean racked his shoulders back, wiped his face and headed up the stairs, leaving Sam behind without another word. The little brother dropped boneless to the couch and buried his face in his hands, suddenly feeling like maybe it really hadn't been.

/


	12. March 2001

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The great Flagstaff adventure wasn't so great for everyone

_Is this another Flagstaff, Sam?_

/

The first time Sam asks about his mother, he is five years old.

Dad was away on a "business" trip for a couple of days, and the two brothers were watching television at Uncle Bobby's house.

Sam had always loved Superman, and had scoffed with a child's unbending certainty at his brother's annoying insistence that Batman was _the best_. 

But, of course, it was ridiculous. 

In the little boy's eyes, there simply was no superhero that could come close to the strength and bravery of the Man of Steel.

Even after breaking his arm a few months earlier by jumping off the tool shed behind the motel where they were living at the time, Sam still idolized him and wanted nothing more than to be just like him. Young and silly, wearing a dime store plastic costume and the sleeves of Dean's red flannel tied around his neck like a cape, and convinced he could fly.

Flipping through the channels at the salvage yard, Dean had breathed a sigh of relief to find the original Christopher Reeves _Superman_ just beginning, knowing that his kid brother would willingly sit for an hour or two of rapt attention as he watched his favorite good guy on the screen. Sammy could be annoyingly chatty a lot of the time. With an insatiable curiosity that left his big brother floundering and weary from the endless stream of questions constantly directed at him.

From the moment he could speak, Sam had always been overly observant for a kid. He studied people with a clinical interest, forehead crinkling in thought and tiny rosebud mouth pursed in concentration as he attempted to suss out information and comprehension. During the movie that day he had fixated his single minded focus specifically on the character of Martha Kent for some reason.

Especially intrigued by how she cared for and doted on her adopted alien son, and was a source of support and comfort for young Clark.

Dean didn't notice it at the time. Sammy was quiet and engaged, and for a few precious moments the big brother could lose himself in his own thoughts and worries for his father's safety. Only minimally comforted by the fact that Dad always came back, no matter how long he was gone. Tall, strong and invincible like a real superhero and able to make his firstborn feel truly safe after time spent kicking evil's ass.

In Dean's eyes, neither Superman nor Batman had anything on John Winchester.

When the final credits rolled, Sam, with a wisdom far beyond his years, had bluntly asked his big brother why Superman, tough, strong and invincible Superman, had needed a mom to watch over him, and the Winchester brothers did not.

Dean was shocked into silence for a brief few seconds. Only nine years old himself, worried about their dad and still bleeding and raw on the inside from his mother's fiery death. He had lashed out in anger against his tiny sibling for having the nerve to bring her up. A reaction so singularly rare in their lives that Sammy had burst into inconsolable tears, ducking under a small corner table and curling up into little ball of misery.

In the middle of the screaming and crying chaos, Uncle Bobby had come running into the room, wide eyed and wondering who was killing who. It had taken a moment, but eventually he caught the gist. In one of the only few times he was ever truly annoyed with Dean, the salvage man had dragged Dean into the kitchen and parked his butt in a corner while he coaxed Sammy out from underneath the table.

Sam had cried himself out on his uncle's lap until he was so exhausted he fell asleep. Listening to his little brother's distress, and knowing it was his fault, Dean had stood military straight facing the peeling wallpaper of the kitchen while his own tears coursed silently down his cheeks.

Later that night, after Bobby had gone to sleep, Dean gently tugged his little brother out of his twin bed in the room the boys shared and put a cautionary finger against his lips to keep him quiet. He helped Sammy slip on his shoes and together they crept down the stairs and out the front door into the salvage yard.

Dean held his little brother's hand tightly as they made their way through the endless rows of wrecks until they came to a light blue Mustang with a small trellis of dying weeds creeping up the sides. Grabbing Sam under the arms, Dean helped him climb onto the hood and then clambered up after him. Together they lay side by side, backs pressed against the cracked windshield as Dean pointed his finger into the brightly lit night sky.

"Our Mom does watch over us, Sammy," Dean had said, his voice hushed with reverence. "She's up there in those stars watching us right now."

And Sam had curled up against his brother's side, wanting desperately to believe that it was true.

"What about Daddy?" Sam had asked, head drooping against his brother's shoulder. "Who watches over him?"

Dean's heart had clenched, because Sammy still didn't know how dangerous John's life was when he wasn't with them, and he couldn't understand why their father was gone so much. All he knew was that he missed his dad.

"Mom watches over Dad too," Dean answered, with more confidence than he felt. "He can see the same stars we do. Even when he's not with us."

And they had fallen asleep together on that old muscle car, with happier thoughts of their parents replacing the sadness and worry that usually engulfed them.

That had also been the start of Sam's love of astronomy.

The same fascination that never went away as the years passed and eventually became the foundation of their ritual of star gazing together in open fields as they traveled across the country. A quiet peaceful time of observation and comfort, when they could pretend for a few moments that all the members of their family were watching out for each other.

No matter how far the distance.

It shouldn't have surprised anyone that Sam chose to strike out for a place like Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff when he was angry and hurting and subconsciously needed to connect with his mother and father.

/

The alarm clock next to his bed was glowing at him accusingly.

Neon red numbers reading out 9:23 casting the only break in the complete blackness of the moonless night blanketing Sam's bed. Laying listlessly on his stomach, arms curled around his pillow and blanket dragged up around his waist. Eyes drifting toward the thin bar of light under his door, he blinked back the waves of drowsiness muddling his mind.

It's been six days since they got back from Elko.

Six long days and nights of getting the silent treatment from his brother. Six days of nothing but one or two syllable commands. _Wake up. Breakfast. Eat. School. PT. Homework. Dinner. Bed_. Literally the only words coming out of Dean's mouth these days.

Sam was beginning to feel like a fucking _Cocker Spaniel_.

Every attempt to engage his brother in any sort of real dialogue was coldly ignored. Dean went through the motions of their home life without question or comment. Morning runs and afternoon PT were done without speaking unless it was necessary to give instruction on technique, which was rare since they had been going through the same routines for years.

Sam was driven to and from school everyday without a word. Not even a _See you at five, Sammy_ or an _Everything go okay, today?_ Meals were put on the table without Sam's request or input. Not that he had any sort of appetite anyway, but the consumption of food was, apparently, still required.

He managed to get an entire sentence out of his brother two days ago when Sam's stressed and acid filled stomach had balked at the cheeseburger put in front of him. Dean didn't even look at him, but when Sam pushed the plate away a low growl from across the table surprised him.

"You're not getting up until at least half that is gone."

And Sam had known from the tone that he would still be sitting at the table until the early hours of dawn if he didn't obey.

Even if his brother had to tie him to the _freakin' chair_ and force it down his throat, one way or another Sam would be eating it. Still, it had been the most Dean had spoken to him at once in days, so he choked down half the burger and somehow managed to keep it down too.

Nighttime was cruel.

Sam spent the majority of the daytime hours sneaking triple red eyes and energy drinks to keep awake, because at night with his mind guilty, depressed and wandering, sleep was completely eluding him. So he was perpetually exhausted, yet jittery. Lack of sleep made his stomach dance and flip, which only made food less palatable, which made the caffeine and sugar he was existing on have a greater effect in unnerving him.

It was a vicious cycle.

Each night he had gone upstairs, after hours studying at the kitchen table, to brush his teeth and change. Then on his knees for his nightly one sided chat with whatever higher power was listening. Begging for an end to the unbreachable wall of tension between himself and his sibling.

Then getting into bed and shutting the light off promptly at nine o'clock as required. Only to toss and turn, rubbing his eyes and temples trying to shut out the nagging voice in his mind chastising him for bringing all of this on himself, as well as the other petulant voice that was angry because his brother was being an unreasonable dick.

Sam shut the last voice down especially hard. Dean had every right to be mad.

The nights would have been easier to get through if he could just immerse himself in a book. A few weeks ago Dean had surprised him with a copy of _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_ and Sam had been waiting for an opportunity to read it as a way to wind down at night. Sam had only mentioned wanting the fourth book in the series once or twice in passing, but somehow, like he always did, his big brother retained that little piece of information long enough to remember to buy it.

Dean was the one that gave him the giant flashlight so that he could do just that and not break Dad's rule on lights-out, and now it just sat on his dresser _mocking_ him. Reminding him of how often Dean went out of his way to do small kind gestures, and not only since they moved to Sioux Falls either but throughout their entire lives.

Keeping that in mind, this time Sam wasn't going to skirt the rules.

This wasn't just an arbitrary exhibit of his father's alpha male authority over his youngest son.

This was a punishment.

One that Sam had well and truly earned for himself, and he needed to own it. All of it. Especially since, all things considered, his brother had been extremely lenient with him. Two weeks of lock down was nothing considering that Sam had been certain he wouldn't be allowed out of the house until his eighteenth birthday after the stunt he pulled.

Not to mention saving Sam from their father's wrath, which apparently would have been far greater than the younger brother had imagined, and Sam could imagine quite a lot.

He wasn't going to cheat and read in bed, even though the long hours of darkness and silence were mentally too bright and deafening in the chaos of his guilty mind. Too much quiet and stillness to reinforce his own selfishness and disregard for his brother's fear and concern. That was probably the point, he supposed.

At his age, a mandatory bedtime of ten was already degrading enough but, although annoyed, Sam hadn't been particularly surprised because it was just another one of the endless examples of his father's heavy handed control over his sons' every waking moment. The same control that was fueling the vestiges of Sam's desire to escape.

Dean was twenty-two and John still had him running around in circles at his command like a well trained puppy, and Sam would have been kidding himself if he didn't accept that Dad would use every trick in his paternal overlord tool box to make this _normal_ year as constricting as possible.

Being confined to his room an hour earlier than that was purely mean spirited retribution on his brother's part.

Not that Sam didn't prefer the privacy of his own room. A luxury that had never really existed in his life before. Under other circumstances, he would have been more than happy to hide away among his books and his studies without his brother's exhausting energy bouncing off the walls.

Of course, now that he was actually required to be in his room, it only served to irritate him more because Sam hated the feeling of not having a choice.

This particular restriction rankled Sam because he suspected it was more a case of Dean really just wanting Sam out of sight and out of mind. From the minute he came home from school at night until he went back in the morning. The knowledge of that hurt Sam more than he thought possible because while they could fight and bicker, the brothers had always been best friends as well.

Right now Dean simply didn't want to see him or engage him, and it was glaringly obvious that the earlier he could get Sam upstairs and out of his presence, the better.

Sometimes, as Sam lay on his bed and brooded, he gave pause to wonder how much he was going to miss his brother when he was away at school, if the distance between them right now was absolutely killing Sam when they were still living in the same house.

How bad would it be when they were physically parted?

On those few occasions when Sam had been left behind while Dad and Dean hunted, he had ached for his brother's return, unable to deal with the pain of abandonment. As a child with few constants in his life, the absence of the biggest one was devastating, and Sam had found himself willing to join the hunt just so they wouldn't be apart.

He was older now, but it didn't mean he needed the comfort of his brother's companionship any less.

Dean's attitude towards this whole thing, while not entirely unexpected, was truthfully pissing Sam off a little too. Even though he rationally knew that it shouldn't. Sam was in the wrong here, and he had to admit that to be fair. Although it was pure bullshit that he had a family where he was forced to hide his collegiate ambitions, and he felt perfectly justified in doing what he needed to do for his own future and would make no apologies about it.

That didn't change the fact that he lied, repeatedly, to his brother.

Or that he left home when he wasn't allowed to, breaking a million rules in the process to do so. The brothers may have been raised in a very unorthodox environment, but they had always had rules to obey regardless.

Plenty of them actually.

It wouldn't be right for Sam to complain one minute about how abnormal their family was, and then the next minute take advantage of that when it benefited him.

The plain truth was that he was still only seventeen and, like it or not, still a minor that was not allowed to just go off and do as he pleased. None of his normal friends would have been able to drive cross country alone without permission and gotten away with it without repercussions. Dean still had partial custody of him for another three months, and even though he was Sam's brother and not his father, Sam felt obligated to respect his authority for several reasons.

His brother worked hard and helped Dad pay for the house and Sam's school. Food, clothes and a million other things that Sam didn't need to worry about, but got the benefit of just the same like other kids. Dean had always put Sam's needs and happiness before his own. Had always done whatever he could to make his little brother's life a little easier, a little safer.

Dean was responsible for most of the really happy memories in Sam's life as well.

It wasn't unreasonable for the older brother to expect just a little cooperation and honesty out of Sam. Sometimes you just get so used to having a steady presence in your life, you find yourself taking advantage of it always being around and, as Sam was finding out, it might not be there after all if you make hurtful and inconsiderate choices.

As adult as Sam felt he was becoming, he also accepted that he had to do as he was told or face the consequences until he was paying his own way. As the youngest he had always been taken care of, and it was pretty even between his father and brother of just who was doing the caring as Sam grew up.

Even college kids still followed rules when it was the parents paying tuition and expenses, and since Sam had already made the decision to continue to compromise and defer to his father once he was in college, he couldn't very well justify blowing off his brother now while Sam was still an non-contributing minor in a home Dean was paying for.

After all, it was the normal way. Another uncomfortable truth that Sam was realizing the more time he spent as a civilian.

The bruise on his jaw was already faded, and thankfully no one had asked any embarrassing questions about it. Sam was prepared to give the standard _sparring with my brother_ answer, because all of his friends knew that he and Dean worked out and trained together. He forgave his brother for punching him immediately. It had surprised him, and he was hurt that Dean had done it, but Sam wasn't holding a grudge about it.

Honestly, if Dean had worried him as badly as he knew he had worried Dean, Sam might have felt like throwing a couple of punches of his own.

Sam embellished the truth a little, telling his study group only that he was grounded for breaking curfew (they didn't need to know exactly how), so they understood about the suspension of dinner and reviews at the Winchester house and also the loss of Sam's car. The girls in the group lamented the missed opportunities to spend time around Sam's cute brother, who flirted just enough with them to make them feel giddy but not enough to actually think he was interested, and the guys sympathized the lack of the beautiful Camaro.

He was hopeful that Dean would allow it to start back up again, but Sam wasn't going to push if his brother wasn't feeling especially generous about hosting his school friends anymore.

So for another eight days, and even longer if his brother decided two weeks was insufficient, _which Sam was okay with if he did because it was a shitty thing to do to Dean_ , the younger brother would keep his tail firmly tucked between his legs and behave himself. Uncle Bobby still had his car at the salvage yard with the keys. Sam's phone was handed to him in the morning before school and then taken back and returned to Dean's pocket when they came home in the afternoon.

No matter how pissed his brother was, Sam wouldn't be left without a means to call him in case there was trouble.

Sam did his training and then did his chores without complaint. He studied in the kitchen, steered clear of the computer alcove, and then went to his room on time without being told. Voicing an apology only seemed to make his brother even angrier, so eventually Sam just stopped trying.

It was Dean's silence that hurt the most.

Except for his habit of asking too many questions of his brother, Sam had always been a relatively shy and quiet kid. When you had a sibling that was pure energy, your entire environment tended to thrum with a constant stream of noise, whether you liked it or not. It had never been necessary for Sam to initiate conversation or liveliness in their household.

Dean singing REO Speedwagon in the shower, off key, at full volume. Using the mixing spoons in the kitchen to pound out the beat to every Def Leopard song while the pasta was boiling. Jumping up and down on the couch yelling _Sammy you gotta see this_ during wrestling matches on TV. Dancing around with the mop, a la Tom Cruise in _Risky Business_ , while cleaning the floors with _Old Time Rock 'N Roll_ blaring in the background.

Their house was never quiet.

Even when his big brother's ambient noise was driving Sam crazy enough to jam his headphones on and crank up whatever musician had caught his fancy at the time. As annoying as it was, it still made Sam smile and shake his head when watching Dean play air guitar in an attempt to get him to laugh.

They have fought before, like all siblings do.

Yelled, screamed and pushed each other around. Threatened each other, ratted on each other to Dad and trashed each other's possessions in anger. Even through all of that, Dean never ignored him. There were times when Sam wished he would, because Dean screaming at him only made Sam more angry and prone to do more mean things, but there was never this cold silence.

Except that one time.

Was this another Flagstaff?

Maybe.

It was beginning to feel the same if Sam was to compare the aftermath of each event.

Up until Dean had made that comment on the phone, Flagstaff had been a good memory in Sam's mind. One of his best, actually.

Not that it had started out that way.

/

That had been the year when Sam's passion for soccer had really taken off. He enjoyed the thrill of the sport. The adrenaline rush of doing something fun that wasn't training or monster related. He loved being part of a team where his only foes were other human boys striving for nothing more than kicking the next goal.

At the end of the soccer season he had been a student at a junior high school in Pittsfield, Mass and his team went on to win the Division Championship. That little trophy had been Sam's most precious possession, and still had a place of honor now in his bedroom in Sioux Falls. Somehow it had magically appeared in a box of Sam's things one weekend when Dad came to help Dean work on the furnace.

Of course, the Winchesters never stayed in any one town too long. Quite frankly, it was a miracle that Sam had been in Pittsfield long enough to finish out the season in the first place.

That had been in the fall. By the time the end of the school year came around, John had parked the boys at an extended stay motel outside of El Paso. There had been multiple reported sightings and encounters with what John believed to be chupacabras with a taste for human blood along the Rio Grande.

Early summer in that neck of the woods was dry, hot and downright miserable.

John was preoccupied with his research, to absolutely no one's surprise. A little more intense than normal because the kills were becoming increasingly violent and randomly spaced. His tolerance for Sam's mouthiness and poor attitude was significantly lower than usual, and there had already been several fights between them that left all three Winchesters agitated and on edge.

All Sam had wanted to do was go to soccer camp with some of the other boys from his latest school.

He tried to reason with his father, but his pleas were falling on deaf ears. John hadn't wanted to hear about how close by it was. Close enough for Dean to check on him with regularity, even without a car to use. Or that Dean had already told Sam that there was enough money squirreled away in Dean's small activity fund to pay for the admission.

John wasn't having any of it, telling his son in no uncertain terms that he would be laying low at the motel until the hunt was over. Sam had raged over the unfairness of it, demanding to know why he couldn't just be a _normal kid_ at camp for once, and getting nothing but his father barking back at him to _mind your tone_ in return, with a lingering underlining threat of additional PT if Sam didn't start showing some respect.

Although Dean had offered the money for camp and had originally helped Sam plead his case, once their father put his foot down, Sam's big brother did as he always did and backed Dad's play. Angering the youngest Winchester even more. It was beyond frustrating to Sam when his brother acquiesced so easily. He knew that Dean recognized that their father's position on the subject wasn't rational or necessary but, like always, Dean toed the line where John's orders were concerned.

By the time their father was ready to leave for the hunt, Sam's thirteen year old hot temper and emotions were all over the place.

When Dad had gone to hug him goodbye, Sam had pushed his father away for the first time. He called John a _Dictatorial Control Freak_ who was _ruining my life_ and told his father _don't even bother coming back_. Then he had stomped into the motel bathroom and slammed the door.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, Sam had wrapped his arms around himself and spent several minutes heaving deep angry breaths, waiting for his dad to barge in and scream and punish him for his disrespect and hurtful words. Although Sam had regretted what he said, almost the second the words were out of his mouth, he was still furious with John.

As the minutes passed, Sam had mentally worked himself up for yet another battle of wills with his tyrant of a father. Ready, willing and able to point out all the ways that only a crappy dad would deny his son a little summer fun.

But John never came in.

It was almost a half hour later that his big brother had finally wrenched the door open and bodily tossed Sam out into the main room so Dean could take a leak. The main room was empty, and John's go-bag and journal were gone. Through the window, Sam saw only empty space where the Impala was usually parked. For a brief second the realization that his father had indeed left without another word to his youngest son shattered Sam's young heart.

Knowing that John's absences could always very well likely result in Sam never seeing his father again, the thought took the boy's breath away, and he was momentarily gutted that his dad might die thinking that Sam didn't actually want him to come back.

The pain of that idea was too overwhelming to deal with, and Sam pushed it back down deep inside. Instead letting his residual anger over their fights bubble back to the surface since hostility and resentment were far easier to deal with than a child's fear and desperation. By the time Dean came back in the room, Sam had already worked up another head of steam over his father's unfair mandates and frequent absences.

Dean was clearly pissed and ignoring Sam, and the older boy's refusal to engage in a verbal sparring match ramped up Sam's hostility level even more. He flopped down on the bed they were sharing, crossed his arms and seethed with the righteous indignation only a temperamental and tenacious thirteen year old could summon.

"Figures he'd just take off again," Sam spat out, blinking back tears. "Just dumps us here like luggage as always."

Dean huffed and shook his head in irritation as he rummaged around in the small unit fridge for something to put together for dinner.

"Yeah, well he left you a little parting gift, _Sam-sonite_. You get to run laps every morning before breakfast until he gets back."

Sam's eyes had flared then, because the weather had been stifling and miserable, and while he would have been happy to run drills at soccer camp, having to trot endless circles around their motel was not how he was planning to start the summer holiday.

He spent the rest of that day, and the next few besides, seething behind the cover of a book. Dean, for once, wasn't attempting to cheer him up. He made sure that Sam was eating and that the laps Dad had instructed that Sam run were done faithfully, but other than that he left his little brother to his brooding.

There was a bar/pool hall within walking distance of their motel and Dean had started to get into the habit of going out and hunting up some action in the evenings, often not returning until the early hours of the morning. Sam wasn't going to admit it, but his brother's frequent absences were upsetting him. Sam liked his independence, but he also felt better when his brother and father were home safe.

There was a standard policy in their family that the boys weren't supposed to worry about their father missing his estimated return date until three full days had passed. It wasn't unusual for John to be gone significantly longer than anticipated, because sometimes things took longer to wrap up than expected, but Dad would always make sure to call and let them know he was okay as soon as he could.

When the third day of overtime in El Paso passed, and then the fourth, and then the _fifth_ and there was no phone call, a blanket of panic engulfed the shabby little motel room of the Winchester brothers.

Dean stopped going out and took to sitting at the table next to the window and staring out into the parking lot as if he could make his father magically appear by sheer force of his will alone. Sam was stubbornly clinging to his lingering resentment, but his resolve was beginning to crack under the pressure of a son's anxiety over his dad's safety.

The regret over their last words was eating him up inside and making him both angrier and more clingy in equal measures.

Lost in his own stress, Dean didn't respond well to his little brother's scared eyes and shaky questions asking every other minute if he thought their father was okay. Whereas he would normally attempt to comfort his brother and reassure him that nothing could hurt their dad, this time he barked and snapped. Repeatedly pushing Sam away when his little brother attempted the physical contact he needed to keep the tears at bay.

Fear had always sparked anger in Sam, and almost a week after John's missed return date and continued lack of communication, Sam's high rising panic caused him to finally blow after his morning lap run. He had been tired already from lack of sleep and in no mood to act rationally.

It was too hot to really eat anything and he was simply mentally exhausted. He had slammed back into the motel room, sweat pouring off of him from the heat of the pounding morning sun, and flopped down on their bed in agitation.

"This is bullshit, Dean! I'm sick of waiting for Dad to get back so I don't have to sweat my ass off every single morning."

And Dean had turned to him with fury flashing in his green eyes and leveled Sam with a glare.

"Maybe Dad woulda come back if you didn't tell him not to, you obnoxious little shit! Ever think of that?"

Then Dean had stormed out and slammed the door behind him to take up watch outside in the parking lot. Sam peeked out the window and saw his big brother standing stock still on the hot cement, his arms crossed over his chest with his back to Sam.

The younger boy tried to maintain his earlier outrage, but the effort was too hard and he was exhausted and scared. Shaking slightly, he stripped off his clothes and headed into the bathroom. He turned the water on and pushed himself under it, pressing his forehead against the cool tiles. With the noise of the cascading water to hide behind so his brother couldn't hear him, Sam finally lost his battle with tears and cried.

Dean didn't talk to him the rest of the day.

He made Sam a bologna and cheese sandwich for lunch and paid for pizza delivery for dinner, but they ate in uncomfortable silence. Later that night he went back out, leaving Sam upset and alone in the motel to stew. It was almost four in the morning before the older boy came back. Clearly drunk and smelling like smoke and sex, crumpled bills of various denominations spilling out of his pockets.

Sam got him into their father's long abandoned bed. Not wanting to share the larger one with a brother that reeked of debauchery, even though the physical closeness would have been a way for Sam to be lulled to sleep himself.

Dean's drunken and disheveled appearance was not a first experience in their lives. It was far too familiar. Too much like their father on too many occasions to count. Sam had read about different smells having the ability to prompt memories, and right now all his brother was doing was reminding Sam of all the times their dad had come home in a similar state and how Sam never wanted to end up the same way.

They didn't talk the next day either except for a few occurrences of harshly barked sharp words between them, spending it much as they had the previous one. The difference was that Sam's anger was back in full force, and so was the determination that he was getting away from this life of never ending fear and violence and booze and blood and loss.

When Dean got ready to go back out again that night, Sam had begged with his eyes for his brother to stay home, but the older boy ignored the silent pleading and walked out without a word. Hurt, frustrated and fed up, Sam threw some things in his backpack, grabbed some of the cash Dean kept in the nightstand between the beds and took off.

It could have been just fate that had him heading towards Flagstaff.

He didn't have a destination in mind as he walked. All he knew was that he was getting away before this life took him over as much as it had his father and now his brother. There were no buses running at that time of the night, so he headed for a truck stop just outside the edge of the northern part of the city where their motel was located. With any luck, he could persuade a kind hearted trucker to give him a lift.

Sam was a skilled liar.

A talent taught to him by his own father, and although the boy couldn't pull it off where his father and brother were concerned, it didn't take long for him to spin a pathetic tale of a kid with an abusive old man in need of a lift to get him to the safety of his grandmother's house.

An older driver, on a tight schedule but completely taken in with the soul deep earnestness of Sam's puppy dog eyes, took him as far as Tuscon and even gave the kid an extra fifty bucks for bus fare to get him the rest of the way to Sam's stated destination of Phoenix.

Sam actually had no intention of staying in Phoenix.

During the four and a half hour drive to Tuscon he remembered about Uncle Bobby's cabin outside of Flagstaff and Lowell Observatory there. A place that the boy had wanted to visit ever since he first heard about it a few years earlier. It was easy enough to get a bus from Tuscon to Flagstaff, and even easier to find the cabin once he arrived.

Sam had drilled locations and directions into his memory mercilessly during that time with Uncle Bobby the year before when Dean had gone missing. Determined that neither he nor his brother would ever be lost on another hunt without shelter and a means to be found by their father. The cabin was a three mile walk from the bus station on the outskirts of town. Set back from the road and partially hidden, you needed to know where you were going to really notice it.

A full service convenience store along the route had a small deli area and a few pre-made pizzas sitting under warming lights. Sam was hungry and he bought one, along with a six pack of Mr. Pibb and a few bags of Funyuns. No one bothered to pay attention to the messy haired thirteen year old carrying a pizza box with a huge backpack clinging to his small shoulders as he walked down the road.

The cabin itself was nothing remotely fancy. Even the motel room Sam had just left was nicer, although he was loathed to admit it. There was a fair amount of clutter strewn about on every surface. A small kitchen area clearly decorated in the seventies if the avocado green appliances were anything to go by. There was a dingy gray carpet covering the floor and one entire wall blanketed with kitschy postcards from the various tourist traps along Route 66.

Sam had seen most of them during his family's travels back and forth and, for a brief moment, he choked on the memories of his father taking time out to bring the boys for some occasional fun.

Cheap faux wood paneling covered the walls of the bedroom area that wasn't entirely cut off from the one main room. It had a double bed situated between twin nightstands and covered with an ugly plaid blanket that made Sam grimace when he saw it. There was already enough plaid in his life as it was.

Fortunately the bedding was clean.

It was one of Uncle Bobby's standing rules that if you were to use one of his places to bunk down, you left it habitable for the next hunter or you didn't bother ever coming back. An inventory of the cabinets in the kitchen produced a few cans of soup and some chili, as well as a box of stale crackers and a fairly decent first aid kit. Sam was good on money for the moment, so he wasn't going to help himself to anything just yet.

It wasn't until he crawled into bed his first night there that he gave real thought about ditching his brother back in El Paso.

Dean had been angry with him for days, just for wanting to go to soccer camp like a regular kid. Sam was hurt that his brother didn't side with him against their father after promising him that Dean would do whatever he could to make sure that Sam could go. Dad was being completely unreasonable and Sam didn't regret making sure that his father knew exactly what his youngest son thought of his decision on the matter.

Maybe his brother was worried about where he was.

Maybe he wasn't.

Maybe Dean was finally glad to be rid of him for a while so that he could just go out and have a good time without needing to come back and check on Sam. After all, they had left him on his own before, so clearly they knew that he could take care of himself.

It wasn't Sam's fault that Dad didn't come back when he said he was going to.

It _wasn't_.

Even if Sam had been cold and hurtful and said something intentionally cruel to his father that he didn't really mean _at all_ and wished he could take back _immediately_ , because the very idea of his father being gone, _really gone_ , made his stomach ache and his head pound.

It was Dad's fault for being such a heavy handed controlling asshole, and Dean's fault for never siding with Sam over their father's ridiculous mandates. If that meant that they worried about where Sam was and what he was doing then it was no more than they both deserved.

It wasn't guilt or loneliness that kept Sam awake that first night.

Nope.

Not at all.

The bed was lumpy, and the sheets were scratchy, and there were all of these unfamiliar noises surrounding the cabin that meant that Sam had to stay awake and alert, just like Dad had taught him to be aware of his surroundings at all times.

That was why he tossed and turned all night long, and no other reason.

The next morning, after a lukewarm shower that was all the minimal plumbing seemed capable of providing, Sam had eaten a few slices of cold pizza and shouldered his backpack for the five mile trek to Lowell Observatory.

He spent the entire day and early early evening there, taking all the tours he could because he was a young student and admission was cheap. Admiring the equipment and sitting in rapt fascination of the stories detailing the various discoveries made there.

There was no Dad telling him to hurry up because they had other places to be. No Dean to tease him continuously for being such a little nerd over being excited to spend time listening to a lecture on unmanned space exploration. Even though his big brother would have been paying just as much attention as Sam did.

In total defiance, Sam crossed his arms and racked his shoulders back, refusing to let the whispers telling him that he was scaring his brother get in the way of the good time he was having. Steadfastly pushing back any thoughts of how much Dean would have enjoyed doing this with him, because Dean was still a _jerk_.

Three days passed while Sam slept as late as he wanted to. Never made his bed once. No military corners in his life, thank you very much.

He ate as much junk food as he could stuff in his face without worrying about his brother either snagging it from him or forcing him to eat something that didn't come wrapped in plastic.

The younger brother hadn't reached the period of his life yet when he started to prefer a healthier style of eating, and with no girls around to impress he hadn't really cared about the explosion of zits that spread across his forehead like an invading army.

On the morning of the fourth day Sam had needed to trek back into town for more pizza, soda and chips, determined that he was going to just pig out and enjoy the fact that he didn't need to train in the hot summer weather. Halfway back to the cabin, a bedraggled Golden Retriever began trotting quietly behind him and Sam picked up the pace a little in case the dog wasn't actually as friendly as he looked.

Once he reached his temporary home, Sam had shut the door firmly behind him, unwilling to chance getting bitten when there was no one around to help him with stitches and first aid. But then the sun began to climb higher in the sky and the temperature steadily crept up, and the poor pup was still lying forlornly on the front step looking tired, hungry and panting from the heat.

Sam didn't have it in him to be cruel to a meek and defenseless animal, _and really he had always wanted a pet_ , but of course his father wouldn't allow it.

It started with him carefully putting a bowl of cool water out on the step and watching through the window as the dog greedily lapped it all up in a matter of seconds. A half hour later, it had progressed to another bowl of water and some of the saltine crackers from the cabinet. Then to actually letting the mangy mutt into the cabin to get out of the afternoon sun, and eventually to sharing Sam's pizza for dinner.

The poor thing was ratty and painfully thin, ribs sticking out in blunt testament to his life as an unwanted stray. Sam had coaxed him into the tub for a bath, and once thoroughly wet the pup was purely skin and bones, thus leading to his new name.

Bones became Sam's constant companion after that.

Happily wagging his tail as Sam went about exploring the woods around the cabin and taking the occasional trip into town for more food and drinks. The pup knowing after the first trip that the boy would also splurge for some treats for him too. Once he was bathed and relatively cleaner, Bones had a place in the bed next to his new little master and together they slept snuggled up to each other every night.

Sam enjoyed his time in Flagstaff, more than he had ever enjoyed any other place he had lived.

He did what he wanted, when he wanted, with no one bossing him around and barking out orders. He curled up in a chair for hours and read books that he picked up from the convenience store's limited rack. He played fetch with Bones and took afternoon naps just because he _could_. He even tasked himself with writing a detailed report on all of the cool things he had learned at Lowell, just... _because_.

At night he would sit out on the front step and gaze at the stars and think of his mom.

He was never really afraid of being out on his own. Even when his second week of his time away from his family slipped by, he wasn't really worried about never seeing them again. Simply put, nothing could hurt his big bad hunter of a father and John would return when the hunt was finished.

Of that Sam was sure.

He was also sure that somehow his dad would know to come back sooner rather than later. Because Dean needed Dad to be okay, and deep down Sam needed Dad to come to Flagstaff to find him, and for all of John Winchester's many, many faults, he always came when his kids needed him most.

_Always_

Dean was probably still thoroughly pissed off at Sam, but he would be okay once he realized that Sam being gone was only going to bring their father home faster. The minute John knew that his youngest son was in the wind he would drop whatever he was doing and go and find his kid, no matter what.

There wasn't a doubt in Sam's mind that his father would know exactly where to look for him, because John knew everything about his sons, and it was only a matter of time before he came crashing through the door of the cabin and took his son home.

Any time now.

Sometimes, in the darkness of the evening while Sam stared enraptured at the starry sky, he talked to his mother and asked her to try and send his dad a message to get home to Dean. He didn't realize it at the time, but this was the start of his nightly prayer ritual that continued long after he was found. He found comfort in talking out his fears and concerns heavenward, and it would bring a semblance of peace over him that he wasn't alone in the world even if he was alone in a motel room.

It must have worked too because just when his second week of adventure finally edged out, Uncle Bobby threw open the door to the cabin and Sam knew that his father and brother wouldn't be far behind.

Two weeks was a nice vacation from the hunting life. Sam felt rested, relaxed and ready to rejoin his family since he really was beginning to miss them a lot. During the three hours that he and Uncle Bobby waited for Dad and Dean to arrive, he even managed to nag his uncle into finding a good home for the faithful golden retriever than Sam knew he would be forced to leave behind.

When Dad had come barreling through the door, Sam was genuinely happy to see him. His father wasn't even yelling, like Sam had expected him to, or scolding his youngest for taking him away from the job and breaking a million rules designed for his boys' safety.

Dad had just grabbed him up in the biggest hug he had ever given Sam in his life, and the boy had been happy to cling to his father, comforted by the strong arms around him that he missed. The guilt of their last words washing away with their mutual joy in finding each other again. Dean was busy collecting Sam's things and it hadn't even occurred to the younger boy that his brother was neither looking at nor speaking to him at the time.

The little family drove away from Flagstaff as fast as John could gun the Impala's powerful engine. Unwilling to release his youngest, the immensely relieved father had pulled Sam into the front seat between himself and Dean, driving with his left hand while keeping a firm, reassuring right arm around Sam's thin shoulders until they were hours away.

On the outskirts of Albuquerque they finally stopped and checked in for the night.

Under the lull of the Impala's comforting growl, Sam had snoozed during the trip, a wave of exhaustion and relief having overtaken him outside of Flagstaff's city limits. Dad picked up a to-go bag of tacos and they ate at the table in the motel room with Sam eating twice his usual limit having grown tired of pizza and Funyuns days ago.

It was okay because Dean hadn't wanted any, instead going outside to sit at a picnic table near their end unit in the cool night air. Dad told Sam that Dean was tired, and the younger boy didn't have any reason to doubt it. Besides, Sam was still not completely over his annoyance with his big brother just yet.

Dean hadn't even bothered to hug him when they got to the cabin, although Sam had thought that the brother he adored would have missed Sam as much as Sam had missed him.

After dinner, with Dean still outside, Dad had finally come down from his relieved euphoria of finding his kid alive and well and reprimanded his wayward son for taking off and scaring them so badly. John took his belt off, yanked Sam over his knee and whipped the holy hell out of his little butt. While it wasn't fun, Sam wasn't even really upset by it. He knew what he had done and that there would be repercussions, and even so he wouldn't have changed a thing about his time away.

Except for maybe finding a way to bring Bones with them.

And it was okay, because when Dad was done he let Sam crawl into his lap and cuddled him like he hadn't in years, even though he was really starting to get too big to be held like that. Sam clung to him like an octopus until he was sure that John knew how sorry he was for the hurtful words he flung at his father that terrible day. Then John nudged Sam into bed and sat down beside him as Sam burrowed face first into the clean cool sheets. Dad leaned back against the headboard and gently carded his fingers through Sam's hair until the boy had fallen into the best sleep he had in weeks.

The Cold War between the brothers continued for a few more days as they traveled north to Montana towards another hunt. Dean wasn't talking to Dad either so Sam didn't feel singled out as the car ate up the miles towards the Flathead National Forrest. What John had originally suspected to be a wendigo really did turn out to be a grizzly after all, and with the job aborted they bunked down at a cabin owned by a friend of Uncle Bobby's outside of Whitefish.

It was clear that John needed some downtime, and no one seemed surprised to find their father hitting the Jack a little harder than normal after all the excitement.

A few days into their stay, Sam had grumped to no one in particular that they were going to miss out on any July Fourth celebrations being the middle of nowhere like they were. Dean didn't say a word to him, but when their father was well and truly passed out, the older brother had snaked the keys to the Impala and taken off for a few hours.

When Dean returned, Dad was still snoring in a chair off to the side and didn't give any indication that he would be waking up any time soon. Dean had dragged Sam out to the car and opened the trunk revealing an entire crate of fireworks and Sam finally saw some happiness and light in his brother's eyes.

They jumped in the car and roared off down the dirt road, driving for almost ten miles until they came across the perfect empty field. Sam was practically giddy as he hauled the crate out of the trunk and grabbed two Roman Candles for them. Dean had lit them and the two brothers stood side by side in the vast emptiness of the field and watched the sparks shoot into the air.

Sam had genuinely loved his big brother at that moment, and the lingering hurt of missing him so much the previous weeks and then the cold reception in Flagstaff melted away as easily as ice in the summer sun.

Dean was forever finding a million ways to make his little brother happy, even when he had to skirt their father to do it, and Sam had flung his arms around his brother's waist and pressed his face adoringly into Dean's chest, never wanting to let go.

But there was a crate of fireworks still waiting for them, and the lure was too tempting. Sam lit them all up and together the brothers watched the spectacular display, both of them beaming from ear to ear. Sam had been so giddy that he ran out into the field and danced around in the technicolor shower of exploding lights as his big brother, looking truly happy for the first time in a long time, watched over him.

Even when the field caught fire, and the boys had to jump back into the Impala and haul ass, Dean was still laughing hysterically and this time it was his arm around Sam's shoulders as they drove away.

Those had always been Sam's memories of his time in Flagstaff, but now, over four years later, he couldn't help wondering if he had actually missed something very important.

/

It was getting harder to ignore his little brother's hurt face.

To be honest, the gulf between then was killing Dean too. It didn't make it any easier to know that he could stop it any time he wanted to. That one word from him could bridge the gap and make Sammy smile again.

Sam had been trying so hard to get them to talk, and it was tearing Dean up inside every time he forced himself to turn away. He didn't need to actually look at the kid to know that his thin shoulders slumped and his shaggy head bowed in resignation when none of his pleas for communication were granted.

It's not like Dean was being a jerk on purpose.

A lifetime spent making sure that his little brother was spared as much pain and suffering as possible was a habit that was hard to break, especially when he was the one hurting the kid with his silence. It left a gnawing pain in his gut, and he wanted nothing more than to give his little brother a hug and tell him that it was okay and move on like nothing had happened.

But he couldn't do that this time.

Maybe it was a combination of his still hovering resentment over Sam's blatant selfishness regarding his trip and a primal human reaction of inflicting retaliatory pain on the one that had hurt him so badly.

That was probably part of his reticence to make peace.

The primary reason was that he was hoping that his refusal to talk to his brother at all would finally push the kid into sharing the details of where he was and what he was doing. Not that his little brother wasn't entitled to some privacy, but this was obviously a big deal considering the lengths Sam had gone to, to pull it off.

Dean was going to need some real information on something that major, and he was going to need it quick.

Sammy said it wasn't dangerous but he was still just a snot nosed kid, and sometimes Dean's little brother had no real concept of what constituted danger in the non-hunting world.

Because Sam was a good boy at heart.

Kind, considerate and compassionate, and he desperately tried to see the best in everyone. That kind of gentle faith in people could get him killed if he wasn't careful, and it was up to Dean to make sure that never happened.

By virtue of necessity, and baptism literally by fire, Dean was a little more versed in the evils that existed in nature, not just of the supernatural kind, and it was his job to protect his little brother from being led down the wrong paths in life. If it meant he had to be cruel to get the truth, then that is what he was willing to do. No matter how strained and stressed their relationship was right now.

He could only hope that sooner or later, Sammy would break and spill all. Hopefully before Dean broke himself. Because if he had to spend much more time with his little brother, gutted, subdued and walking on eggshells around him, Dean wouldn't be able to maintain his own stoicism any longer and that wasn't good for either of them in the long run.

The drive to Elko had been hell.

As physically exhausted as Dean had already been from the hunt and the drive back from Wisconsin, he hadn't even taken the time for a quick nap before heading west. He did phone Bobby before he left, because the salvage man deserved the respect of consideration as his boss if Dean was going to be gone for another couple of days.

As good as his surrogate uncle had been to the brothers, it didn't sit well with Dean to continue to take advantage of his kind nature and generous work hours. He truly hated being the cause of putting the work of the yard behind schedule because his bitchy little brother got a wild hair up his ass, and Dean was genuinely apologetic on the phone.

Bobby clearly sensed the tiredness and agitation in his voice and had ordered Dean, in no uncertain terms, to come and pick him up and they would do the trip together. It wasn't something the older brother had even considered. While he knew with certainty that he would be driving Sam home in the Impala, he hadn't even bothered to give any thought about what would happen with the Camaro.

It was a huge relief when Bobby offered to help him drive out there.

With the two of them at the wheel, they could switch off and sleep for a while without losing any hours on the road. Bobby was more than willing to drive Sam's car back. He had some stops along the way back that he could make, checking on the hunting cabins and picking up supplies. Assuring Dean that there wasn't anything at the salvage yard that required the immediate attention of either of them.

Bobby understood what John's reaction to Sam's disappearing act would be, knowing his old friend as well as he did, and he agreed with Dean that their days in Sioux Falls would be numbered if their father found out. Dean didn't like asking Bobby to lie for them, and the older man didn't particularly want to. As long as John didn't ask any direct questions, Bobby told Dean that he wasn't going to volunteer information.

It was as good a compromise as Dean could ask for.

He barely remembered the trip out there.

Between blearily ticking off the mile markers and trying to get a few minutes of sleep here and there, the older Winchester brother was running on sheer autopilot. Dean couldn't decide whether to be more petrified for his little brother's safety or of his father's wrath.

All he could think of was what John's reaction had been when Sam had run off to Flagstaff years earlier.

/

It was exhausting at times, playing referee between Dad and Sammy. For two highly intelligent people, neither one of them seemed to possess the capacity to see the side of the other in an argument. Unfortunately for Dean, he could see _both_ sides with equal clarity, and it was pulling him apart at the seams to be forced to continuously choose sides.

To be fair, most of the time he came down firmly on Dad's side, for the simple reason that John was his father and deserved his respect. Everything Dad did, he did for a reason, and it wasn't Dean's place to question it, even when he disagreed with it.

There were times when he wanted to back his little brother's position, because Dad tended to see life through a very constricting pair of blinders, but it didn't sway Dean's obedience.

Sammy was just a kid, and a fairly spoiled one on occasion at that, and Dean was usually the one caught trying to play peacemaker between the other two Winchesters because otherwise their lives would be nothing but screaming fests and tears and slammed doors.

Dad had his reasons for not letting Sammy go to that fucking soccer camp and Dean was going to respect that.

Although he would have been happier to have actually had a fair argument to make when Sammy threw his fit and then bitched for a week. His little brother was good at sports and he had really thrived on that team back in Mass. Dean had gone to every game and he didn't give a rat's ass what anyone thought about it.

In his opinion, if you couldn't be bothered to cheer on your little brother, that didn't make you much of a man.

He had already known that things were only going to get uglier as the time came for Dad to leave for the hunt and Sammy was still glaring with rage. What he hadn't been expecting was his little brother to scream at their father to not bother coming back.

Then the little brat scampered off to throw a hissy in the bathroom, slamming the door for maximum theatrical emphasis, so he wasn't in the room to see their father's face grow pained and fall. Dean had seen his father in all kinds of dangers and various states of tension and high emotions, but he had never seen him look so hurt, and it pissed Dean right the fuck off.

Of course, Dad being Dad, their father had sucked in one quick harsh breath and then played through the pain. Gathering his stuff and heading for the door, he bit out instructions for Sammy to run every morning until his return. He ran a quick affectionate hand over Dean's head, with one last glance at the closed bathroom door, and then headed out to face God knew what in the desert.

Dean had been fuming on his father's behalf, more than willing and able to rip his little brother a new hole for being such a disrespectful little shit. Why their father had not taken the time to set his younger son straight before he took off, Dean didn't know, but he wasn't prepared to let the kid get away with the attitude any longer.

If that degree of insolence had come out of _Dean_ , John would have salted and burned his ass before the last word had dropped from Dean's tongue.

Sammy pouted in the bathroom for almost a full thirty minutes before Dean decided that enough was enough. The brat wasn't going to hide in the head for the rest of the day and ponder on the unfairness of his poor, sad little life. Dean had barged in and saw the boy sitting limp on the side of the bathtub and, just for a moment, Sammy looked almost as wrecked as their father had, and Dean felt his anger lowering slightly.

It wasn't in his nature to gloss over his kid brother's unhappiness and he was just about willing to chalk it up to Sammy's reluctance over their father having to take off again. But then Sam had to do the monumentally stupid thing of opening that smart assed mouth of his and pissing Dean right off again. Seriously, it was like living with a human roller coaster.

Up and Down

Up and Down

And truthfully? Right now, Dean wanted off that ride because he was getting sick and tired of it.

The rest of the week didn't get any better. Sam never stopped his litany of complaints and Dean was getting a migraine from the minute they got up in the mornings. Tired of the constant tense atmosphere, the older brother was crawling the walls to get away. It had never been a problem for Dean to leave Sam safely locked in at their motel room and head out to hustle as long as the bar was within walking distance.

He never even usually needed his fake ID either.

Between his acquired smooth tongue and confident swagger, he always managed to get past the bouncers at the doors. Dad had taught him how to be careful around places like that. Dean drank just enough to seem social. He was careful to watch the company being kept by the women that he hit on, and he spent a long time identifying his marks before he dropped himself into a game.

Over the course of a few days he managed to make some pretty decent money, and there were two opportunities for some sports sex afterwards that he might have taken repeated advantage of if he wasn't feeling obligated to get back to the motel room where his sulky sibling was surely brooding a hole in the wall.

It had only been a few months since Beth had busted his cherry back in Blue Earth, and Dean was extremely pleased to discover that not only did he genuinely enjoy romping with the ladies, he was well and truly gifted at pleasing them.

With Dad away, this little mouse was looking to play.

Of course, once Dad had blown his return date out of the water, Dean was not really in the mood to flirt or hustle anymore.

Preferring to stay behind at the motel and hold vigil for his father's return and keeping an extra sharp eye on his increasingly vocal little brother. An angsty and hormonal thirteen year old on a good day, Sammy wasn't particularly Zen about Dad's missing status, and Dean had known that the kid was a bomb ready to go off.

Sam didn't know that Dean had been calling their father's cell a dozen times a day, getting increasingly more desperate to hear Dad's voice reassuring him that everything was okay. Between John's radio silence and Sam's constant stream of moodiness, it was a mentally taxing tsunami, and eventually Dean had just lost it himself.

_Maybe Dad woulda come back if you didn't tell him not to, you obnoxious little shit! Ever think of that?_

Dean hadn't meant to lash out at the kid like that. Really he didn't. It was just a matter of Sammy saying the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time. And Dean was sorry, _he was_ , but he was still just a kid too and there was only just so much craziness and stress he could deal with without losing his own shit.

He had gone back out that night and lost himself in a larger quantity of booze than he knew his father would allow.

A less than clear head also drove him into the arms of a late twenty-something barfly with a rented house down the street. Filled with lace, chintz everything, flowered purple sheets and a curious Siamese cat that liked to watch. He barely remembered dragging himself back to the motel room in the middle of the night, and only vaguely recalled how he managed to wind up in his father's discarded bed.

Sammy had bitched at him all the next day, irritating his already widely hungover head and dancing all over the raw nerves that were stretched to the breaking point over the fact that this time John might not actually come home.

Not that Dean was giving up on his father.

He had nothing but confidence in his dad's ability to outsmart, outwit and outrun anything he came up against. But it was one thing to think that, and quite another to pretend that terrible things didn't happen to good people. After all, this whole life was because of a horrible tragedy that no one had ever seen coming.

It was suffocating in the room and the air was thick with dread and hostility. Dean knew that Sammy would be safe there. It was warded up the ass, the kid could handle weapons just fine and there was enough salt poured on every opening to give the entirety of plus sized Middle Americans hypertension just by driving by. The bar was only a few hundred yards away if his little brother needed him.

Dean ignored the puppy dog eyes being shot at him and pushed out the door into air he could actually breathe in.

By the time he made it back a few hours later, a couple hundred dollars richer, not quite as buzzed as he had been the night before, and feeling guilty for ditching his kid brother, Sammy was gone.

Dean still doesn't have the words to describe the heart stopping and breath stealing total and utter helplessness he felt that night. His entire body started to shake as he gripped his head and swayed on his feet, all the while trying to simultaneously formulate a plan to find his little brother.

Sammy's duffel bag was still in the motel room closet where it had been since the day they arrived, but his backpack and some clothes were missing. The best that Dean could hope for was that the kid had taken off in a snit for a little while and would find his way back after a few hours of pouting somewhere.

Before Dean even took in his first real gulp of air, his fingers were already feverishly dialing his father's phone again, but there was still no answer.

For three solid days the frantic big brother scoured the streets of El Paso, running flat out from place to place. From stalking the damn soccer camp to staking out the library and museums. Trying to catch a glimpse of a mop headed thirteen year old that was a little too small for his age and hefting a backpack that, if Dean knew his little brother, probably weighed more than the kid himself.

He must have asked a thousand people if they had seen Sammy, desperately thrusting at them with the photo of the two brothers Dean kept in his wallet.

No one had seen him at the bus station, or at Union Depot. Running on nothing but coffee, adrenaline, and naked fear, Dean had pleaded frantically at the truck stop near the motel for any possible sighting of the boy.

Nothing.

No sightings.

No help of any kind.

Sammy was just gone. In the blink of an eye, while Dean was out self medicating the hysteria that his father was missing, his little brother had taken off too. Every half hour he left increasingly nervous messages on his father's voice mail until the mail box was completely full and all he had left was dead air.

It was almost three in the morning on the third night when his phone finally rang.

Dean had forced himself back to the motel several times during the day and night between searches just in case Sammy showed back up. It wasn't the first time that he regretted his father's unwillingness to spring for another cellphone for his little brother. At least then Dean might have heard something.

Anything.

Even if it was just Sammy telling him to fuck off, he would have taken it at the moment, but the kid had no way to contact them if he was in real danger.

Dean's hands were shaking like an addict in withdrawal when he grappled for the phone sitting across from him on the table in the motel room, and when he saw the Caller ID he felt practically faint with relief.

"Dad?"

" _What...Happened?_ "

There had been a cold rage to John's voice on the other line. In the background Dean could heard the growl of the Impala being pushed to unsafe speeds, and although he was weak from no food and no sleep there was an indescribable solace washing over him.

Dad was okay

Dad was okay

Dad was okay

Dad would find Sammy, because their father could find a needle in a stack of needles. He was the ultimate hunter and tracker, and Dean didn't doubt for a moment that wherever his kid brother was, Dad would know how to get him back.

His voice suddenly parched, he had relayed the events of the past few days to his father, with John making no comment until he was finished. It wasn't that Dean was expecting his father to comfort him after he had fucked up so royally, and it didn't matter because the man's only other words were enough to ease his firstborn's mind a tiny bit.

" _I'll be there in forty._ "

Then the line cut out and Dean gulped in huge draws of air when he realized that he was on the verge of passing out from holding his breath. Those forty minutes had been the longest of his young life and it had seemed like days before he heard the black beauty pull into the parking lot. He had thrown the room door open and watched his dad, cut and bloodied, with days of beard growth matted down from the heat, stride towards him.

Dean's knees went weak.

A combination of exhaustion and relief, and when his father grabbed him by the shirt, the boy thought at first that it was because John was trying to prevent him from falling to the floor, but then he was rocked back into consciousness by the violent thrusts of his father's powerful arms.

"You...Had...ONE...Job!"

Every word was punctuated by another harsh shake, powerful enough to force Dean's teeth to painfully gnash together in his mouth and make his head loll from side to side like a rag doll.

"I...TRUSTED...You!"

_Shake_

"I...RELIED...On...You!"

_Shake_

"Your brother is GONE!"

_Shake_

"He could be DEAD!"

_Shake_

"And it'll be YOUR FAULT...because you couldn't stay home...and do...your...FUCKING JOB!"

_Shake_

_Shake_

_Shake_

Hot tears burned down Dean's cheeks and he felt nothing but shame for acting so weak in his father's presence.

The shaking was rattling his brain and making him see spots, and he could feel himself losing his battle with unconsciousness. The blood was rushing to his ears, adding to his distortion, and before he knew it he was bringing up fiery hot bile from his stomach and spewing it all over himself and the grungy motel carpet.

His father let go of him then and Dean sank boneless to the floor, coughing and gagging and struggling to keep awake. Putrid streams of stomach acid streaked down his shirt and matted into the carpet under his knees.

He couldn't bring himself to face Dad. The crushing burden of being the cause of his father losing his youngest son overwhelming him to the point that his entire state of being was just a complete blur.

Somehow he managed to make it to his bed, and he sat there in a daze while his father made a flurry of phone calls. Dean listened through cotton clogged ears, his eyes shifting in and out of focus, as Dad's voice began to swirl faster and faster, like a record being played at the wrong speed and it would have been funny if it wasn't so terrifying.

Over the next few days, Dean wasn't permitted in the car with his father to search for Sammy. John was determined that his firstborn stay behind in the motel in the unlikely event that his little boy find his way back there.

Logically, Dean knew it made sense, but it didn't lessen the humiliation of being sidelined in the search, or the crippling fear that his father simply didn't want him anywhere near. For a boy who lived for his family, the total rejection by both of them in the harshest manner possible brought Dean to his knees.

Caleb joined the search the next day, tearing up the roads between Lincoln and El Paso. He and John created a search grid and they split the difference. Another hunter that was significantly more tech savvy was tasked with checking the traffic cams trying to spot the boy. Meanwhile Dean was forced to sit behind and alone in the motel with his thumbs up his ass.

Feeling more and more worthless, untrustworthy and impotent from his father's rage as the Sammy-free minutes pass.

He stares at the peeling paint of the walls of the motel room until his eyes tear up from lack of blinking. He paces, on increasingly unsteady legs, deep trails in the stained industrial grade carpet that's faded in a million places and dark with unidentifiable bodily fluids in others. He runs his hands through his buzz cut until he's pulling swatches of short hairs through the gaps in his fingers.

His eyes are bloodshot, deep dark hollows surrounding faded green irises that have lost their life and luster since his little brother vanished like a wisp of rebellious angsty smoke. His skin is pasty white with a waxy sheen and his freckles stand out like vivid accusing marks of failure and uselessness.

He doesn't know who he is if he's not his brother's protector.

His father's gun hand.

These past few weeks have made a perfectly crystalline clear case that he is neither. Dad hunted alone without backup because Dean had One Job, and John had returned several scars richer and a pint or two of blood poorer because of it.

Not only that, but, Sammy was God knows where, doing God knows what, or worse, having God knows what being done to him by God knows Who. Or What.

If he was even still alive that is.

_Some protector you are, Dean._

_You pathetic, useless, worthless, failure of a poor excuse for a brother and son that you are._

_All you do is let your family down_.

As the week passed before his father finally called in with the news that Bobby was pretty sure that Sam had taken refuge in one of the hunting cabins, Dean was rapidly losing weight as well as his mind. He couldn't make himself eat, and was only sleeping when his body and mind united in rebellion against his will and forced him down for a few minutes here and there.

By the time John finally agreed to swing by and pick him up, Dean was barely coherent and slipping fast. And he's cold. So fucking cold, and his hands shake and his skin is mottled with goosebumps and no amount of hot water in the shower can stop his teeth from chattering.

His thoughts skip back and forth wondering if Sammy is just as cold as he lies dead somewhere. Small, helpless and alone because his big brother failed at watching out for him like he's always promised the kid he would.

Looking back, Dean is pretty sure that he experienced a fairly profound psychotic break during that time. The memories of what happened right after they found Sammy in that cabin are still filmy and he can't think of them without experiencing a delusionary white hum ringing in his ears.

His first clear memory is on the drive to Montana, when his mind finally allowed him to accept the idea that the Dad and Sammy riding in the car with him were actually the real members of his family and not some starvation and sleep deprivation induced hallucinations.

He has vague flashes of consciousness from the days beforehand, but they are disjointed and muddled and most of them don't make any sense at all, because he's pretty sure that there was some kind of dog in the middle of it, and his family doesn't do the pet thing.

He's also pretty sure that he remembers hearing the telltale swish and crack of Dad's belt getting a workout, and Dean is certainly the one culpable in this whole mess and more than deserving.

There's a fleeting moment of wanting to tell Dad that it wasn't any use bothering.

Dean is too far removed from any physical sensation at the time, his mind and body numb beyond comprehension, and all John would be accomplishing is tiring himself out more than he already was with the effort, and Dean's just not worth it. But later there are no marks on his ass heralding the aftermath of an encounter with it, so maybe he just imagined his cheek resting on the cool flat surface of a natural wood picnic table, lying in wait for punishment.

It's all just so confusing.

There was a wendigo, and then there wasn't a wendigo, and then some rundown cabin in the middle of nowhere. With rusty springed beds and a tattered couch and antlers on the walls. The floor is littered with detritus, and the whole place feels like it was abandoned mid-use years ago judging by the crud encrusted dishes in the dingy sink, the clothing scattered about, and the half-missing ancient wind chimes on the porch.

It's at the cabin that he finally sleeps.

Covered in a scratchy blanket with a flat pillow behind his head, trying not to gag on the smell of must and long term vacancy in the pillowcase. His head slows down so that the spins in his mind finally stop turning at warp speed and it's a halting and stuttering progression of awareness as his eyes flutter shut.

He thinks for a moment that the gravelly rumble he hears in his head is his father's deep baritone softly humming, but it could have just been the thunder caused by the storm coming in dark and threatening from the distance. But there is also a steady weight on his back, and it feels like it could be something shaped like Dad's hand, gently patting and rubbing, and whatever it is he drifts until his mind is black and he doesn't need to think anymore.

The next morning he awakens to the smell of dark roast coffee brewing and the aroma makes his empty stomach twist and he breathes deeply and slowly through his nose to keep from dry heaving on the stale linen of his ramshackle bed. Dad is at the stove, his muscled back stretching the fabric of a plain white T-shirt that is smudged with grass stains.

His father doesn't say anything when he turns around to frown at his firstborn but he jerks his chin towards the rough hewn wood table, streaked with cigarette ash and dotted with random scraps of notes, and Dean knows better than to defy him by staying in bed. He hobbles over to the table like a senior citizen and drops himself into one of the uneven chairs, and there's suddenly a bowl of oatmeal pushed in front of him.

Dean doesn't remember the last time he consciously ate something, unable to shake the lingering determination that failures don't need to have food wasted on them. He balks and gags at the weak smell of the hot cereal, and it's not until his father orders him to eat it that he forces himself to lift a spoonful to his mouth.

Sammy is still sleeping on a small camp bed. Tufts of brown curls sticking up wildly in every direction. His little brother's face is rosy with good color and his breathing is steady, light and carelessly easy. The sight of him safe and healthy and _here_ is better for Dean's digestion than the tepid bowl of mush that he is picking his way through under Dad's watchful eye.

During the next two days, Dean's world slowly regains color.

Whereas the previous weeks had been a blurry haze of black, white and gray, their lives in that bedraggled cabin in Montana begin to bloom in a rainbow of shades in his mind. Air that was stagnant and thick, barely able to fill his lungs with oxygen, was suddenly clear and refreshing again.

After the oatmeal he had been pushed back to sleep, Dad's firm hand on his neck propelling him into the bed, and when he woke the cabinets were bursting with supplies that let him know the family was here for a while. Sammy and their father are having a surreal discussion on the Apollo moon landing and Dean's brain isn't quite able to wrap itself around something that abstract just yet.

Instead, he helps himself to the bag of peanut M&Ms on the table that are most assuredly for him, since neither of the other Winchesters care for them. His stomach growls loud and angry and he shuffles out to the quiet emptiness of the front porch where he lays down on his back and just lets himself breathe as candy coated chocolate peanuts melt over his reawakening taste buds.

That afternoon Dad is clearly _done with the world_ , and he mentally checks out, dragging a bottle of Jack to a chair in the back of the cabin, and the boys know that unless disaster strikes he is to be left alone for a while.

Sam isn't talking, but that probing, earnest stare that defines his eyes is burning into Dean's brain, but he can't talk to his brother just yet. The words won't come and Dean isn't finished processing the maelstrom of his wildly fluctuating thoughts. He's unable to formulate a sentence that could possibly do justice to the nightmare existence that almost dragged him completely under.

A prayer, a plea, a curse or an accusation. Rage, hysteria, devastation or jubilation.

He settles for slapping together a PB&J and pouring a glass of milk, standing sentry while his little brother consumes both before he flees outside again, because the porch is the only place where he can truly fill his lungs.

Then Sammy is bitching to the room at large about fireworks and the fourth of July, and Dean blinks hard and fast because he hadn't realized that the month had changed while he was drowning. Dad is in a bourbon soaked coma and unavailable for consultation, so Dean doesn't feel bad when he snags the Impala's keys and takes off.

With John home, if Sammy disappears again it's on him and not Dean this time, and the oldest son shoves back a malicious resentment that Dad should be sober and watching out for his wayward kid.

He travels enough to have a fair instinct about where to find the nearest town, and he's not disappointed when it appears twenty minutes later after driving a long ribbon of winding road through the forest. There is an explosion of red, white and blue bunting draped over every porch and street light, and signs for barbecues and picnics and concerts.

It doesn't take long to locate a large white tent propped up at the edge of town plastered with signs hawking a plethora of fireworks. The money Dean earned hustling while he was abandoning his baby brother is still bulging like paper accusations in his pocket and he drops it all, every dime and then some besides, and buys a huge crate of explosives.

He heads back to the cabin long enough to heat up a can of stew for Sammy's dinner, choking back a handful of chips himself, and leaving a sandwich and a bottle of water next to Dad's chair. Although the likelihood of their father regaining consciousness during the evening is next to zero, Dean leaves a note letting him know that the boys will return in a few hours just the same.

John doesn't need another moment of worry regarding their whereabouts any time soon.

Then he bundles Sam into the car and they shoot off down the road towards a large, grassy field, and when it's dark enough Sammy pulls the crate out of the trunk and grabs a Roman Candle for each of them. Together they shoot them off and all Dean can see is his little brother's smile.

_Dad would never let us do anything like this. Thanks, Dean. This is great._

Then Sam wraps his thin arms around Dean and hugs him close, like he did when he was so much smaller and affectionate, and finally – finally – Dean fully exhales and the cobwebs of his mind clear away. He holds his brother, his warm, breathing, safe and cuddly little brother, and feels his world righting itself on its axis again. His nightmare vanishes and he's truly happy for the first time in a long time.

That night at the cabin Sammy abandons his small camp bed and climbs into Dean's larger one and burrows against his big brother's side.

Dean has scolded him before and told him that he has become too old to snuggle, so Sam contents himself with curling up so that his forehead is pressed against his brother's shoulder, and Dean allows it because he needs the contact just as much.

And that is how their father finds them the next morning, and nothing about the previous weeks is ever mentioned again.

/

There is a delicious smell of lemon and rosemary in the kitchen as the three Winchesters sit down to dinner, but neither of John's sons are really eating.

The roast chicken is cut up and passed around, scoops of mashed potatoes and corn are plopped on plates. John and his firstborn pop the tops of two bottles of beer and Sammy doesn't even bother trying to plead for one like he normally does. There's no bitch faced little brother petulantly reminding his father that Dean was allowed at his age. The only sounds are the occasional clinks of silverware against plates as bits of food are pushed around.

A glare in Dean's direction gets his oldest son to start shoveling forkfuls in his mouth, almost mechanically, but at least he's eating. John taps his fork on Sammy's plate meaningfully, and although the boy doesn't take a bite, it does serve as the first time his father really looks at his youngest son's face in detail.

Sam looks _exhausted_.

He has raccoon eyes and his already thin face looks even thinner. It's not the growing process stretching out his features because the pallor of his skin makes it clear that it's lack of sufficient nutrition. John frowns, annoyed that maybe the kid is working too hard at his studies and not sleeping or eating enough. He is genuinely frustrated because the whole point of this year off was to make sure that Sammy got normal fun out of his system before he settled down to full time hunting.

John is hungry, and the chicken Dean made smells and tastes wonderful, but there is clearly something going on with his kids. Besides the fact that on a regular day you could lose some fingers getting between them and food, their eyes are straying everywhere in the room except at each other.

Dean returns his attention to his own plate, and he is determinedly plowing through his meal now, most likely in an attempt to be able to get up and move around the kitchen without having to sit in the stifling atmosphere of the table. His father knows him well enough to figure that one out for himself.

Sam is still listlessly picking at his dinner without actually putting any of it in his mouth, and John taps his plate again, a little more firmly this time, until his youngest looks up at him through the ridiculously long fringe curtaining his eyes. John tamps back an urge to grab his hair clippers and go to town, because when he specified hair length for the boy he didn't think to bother with a different set of rules for the front.

Damn _too-smart-for-his-own-good kid_ and his ability to take advantage of loopholes.

"Your brother made a good meal, Sammy," he rebukes sharply, raising a perturbed eyebrow. "You know better than to waste food."

Sam blinks, throws a quick glance at his brother that Dean ignores, and then stares back down at his plate before shoving a bite in his mouth.

"Yes, sir."

John hasn't seen Dean in over a week, and Sammy for longer. All he really wanted tonight was to spend some time with his boys, but the tension in the air is so thick you couldn't cut it with a razor sharp knife if you tried. Dean is chewing and shoveling with military precision and Sammy is forcing himself to ingest tiny bites as if each movement is physically painful.

Neither one of them is speaking to their father either and finally John throws his napkin on his plate and pushes it away.

"Okay. What's going on with you two?"

Sam glances up once quickly, a flash of guilt in his black ringed eyes, before he hides back behind his mop of hair. Dean wipes his mouth and racks his shoulders back, a fake casual look schooling his features as he shakes his head at his father and _lies right to his face_.

"Nothing. Everything's fine, Dad."

Sam's eyes dart around the table nervously, but then he purses his lips together and bites down on his bottom row of teeth and jerkily nods his head in agreement.

"Yeah. Fine."

Dean resumes his quest to snorkel the rest of the way through his meal as Sam gulps noisily from his glass of mineral water, and John looks from one of them to the other as his temper rises because if there is one thing he won't stand for, it's being lied to by his kids.

"Okay," he starts in a reasonable tone. "Let's try this again. Without the bullshit. What's going on?"

Sam looks on the verge of saying something, but then there is a sudden surge of hostility in Dean's snapping green eyes and the younger boy pales and grabs his water glass again. Dean takes in a deep breath, but he's a perfectly cool customer as he dangles a piece of chicken on his fork and shrugs nonchalantly.

"Sammy broke curfew last week."

Across the table, Sam chokes on his water, sputtering and gagging as a coughing fit takes over. He slams the glass down and coughs into his napkin as his eyes water, shaking off his father's concerned face as his brother rolls his eyes in agitation and takes another bite of food.

John waits half a heartbeat.

Looks at Dean who looks directly back at him like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, and then over to Sam who is clearing his throat and decidedly not looking at either of them. Dean, under the mistaken impression that the subject is closed, scoops up a forkful of corn and devours it and Sam balls up his napkin and covers the mangled dinner that is now splattered with saliva and sparkling water.

His kids might think he was born yesterday, but John knows that Sammy staying out a little late wouldn't trigger whatever the hell this thing between them is. But he's still going to give Dean the benefit of the doubt if his eldest seems content that the situation is handled.

"And that's it?"

"Yes, sir," Dean replies, taking a swig of his beer.

Dean gets up from the table and clears his plate and Sam's, scraping the leftover food into the trash and keeping his back to his father's inquiring eyes. John turns his attention to his youngest who is clearly trying to look smaller than his increasing size allows him to.

"Why were you late, Sammy?"

He waits for a half second while Sam clears his throat and blinks, and when his son answers it's to the table in front of him and not his father's eyes. Dean has turned surreptitiously to the side, as if he's also interested in the answer.

"I was working on something for school."

Dean's response is just a few seconds too late to be a natural reaction to information he should already have.

"Yeah," Dean says, grabbing the tube of plastic wrap for the leftovers. "But I found him and made sure he came right home."

John nods, as if he's going along with the story.

"Is that why his car isn't in the driveway?"

That simple statement has the profound effect of a bucket of cold water dropped on his kids, and they both immediately freeze in place for a hot second until Dean recovers and continues to fuss with the table as if he didn't miss a beat.

"Yes, sir," Dean answers steadily, stopping his puttering long enough to assume military posture. "I put him on lock down for two weeks."

Sam's face blushes and he averts his eyes when his father sweeps his gaze over to him. John taps a finger on the table as he takes in deep breaths, wondering just how far he should go into Mad Dad mode.

"He fight you on it?" The question is to Dean, even though John is looking at Sam.

"No, sir. Not a peep out of him."

John sweeps his eyes back up to his firstborn, but it's Dean the _Soldier_ standing in front of him now, not Dean the _Son_ , and John knows that information will be forthcoming, but unhelpfully basic.

"Is he following the terms?"

"Yes, sir," Dean replies, eyes forward. "Model citizen."

Sam is sitting slumped in his chair, head down and looking ten years younger than he is. John sighs and rubs his eyes, already weary from this unproductive back and forth. He shoots a pointed look at his firstborn and there is no room in his expression for any more crap.

"Then why are you treating him like he took a tire iron to the Impala?"

The question surprises Dean who blinks rapidly, and John can see the gears working in the boy's mind as his eldest formulates an acceptable response. But Sam, finally roused from his self imposed distance, is quicker.

"I lied to him," Sam says quietly as he raises his eyes to look at his father. "He called to check in on me earlier in the evening and I lied about where I was."

"Sam..."

Dean's eyes are snapping and his jaw is clamped tight, wordlessly warning his little brother to watch where he is going.

"He didn't clear the location with me first, Dad," Dean responds, turning his attention back to his father. "He shouldn't have been where he was. But when he was late getting home and I called to see what was going on, he was straight with me. I went out, found him and then brought him home myself."

That, at least, was the truth, John could tell from the reaction of both of his sons.

"I also took money from our emergency stash without asking," Sam continued, his voice growing stronger.

" _What_?" Dean's voice was shocked and his eyes were wide.

Clearly this was something new, John thought.

"I didn't know if I had enough cash on me for the project I was doing," Sam muttered, his eyes back down to the table. "I put it all back when we got home because I never actually needed it."

John glared angrily at his youngest, because taking money from the family pot wasn't allowed without discussion and Sam knew it. Fuming, Dean had his arms crossed and was frowning in disbelief.

"You know better than that, Samuel," his father barked. "Family is all we have. You don't steal from your family."

Sam's face was pure misery as he sat slumped in his chair and rubbed his hands on his jeans.

"Yes, sir." He looked up and stared at his brother pleadingly. "I'm sorry, Dean. I really am."

John watched as Dean took in deep dragging breaths, clearly trying to calm himself. As much as the father in him wanted to storm in and take control of this particular situation, whatever the problem was, it was between the boys. John could only address the issues they were sharing with him, which at the moment wasn't a lot. He also wasn't about to undermine Dean by further questioning any decision he had made in handing out punishment he clearly thought his little brother had earned.

Since he was the one that put his firstborn into a position of authority over his younger brother, John had to trust Dean's ability to handle things fairly and reinforce Sam's acknowledgment of it.

"I assume you didn't know about the money when you put him on lock down?"

Dean throws a poisonous glare in his brother's direction and then smooths his face back out again to face his father.

"No, sir. I didn't," he admits, his voice hard. "But it's for him too, if he needs it. He knows that."

John nods, because he expects this answer. Doesn't excuse what his youngest did, though. He gets an idea to help judge just how broken things are between them.

"Lines or laps, Dean?"

Dean's head jerks up and confusion and horror muddles his expression.

"Sir?"

"For Sam," John clarifies. "Lines or laps for taking without asking?"

Realization dawns on his son's face and Dean's lips purse into a frown. Both of his kids have run an endless amount of disciplinary laps in their lives and they can do it without blinking.

John is willing to bet that if Dean is only mildly annoyed he will choose laps, because writing lines is what the boys would have to do when they cut loose at Jim's place and Sam hates having to write them. Both boys always have, which is what made it so effective and why they rarely caused trouble in Blue Earth.

So when Dean says _Lines_ , his father is stunned, and from the look on Sam's face, so is Dean's little brother.

"You heard your brother, Samuel," John says, turning to his youngest. " _I will respect and obey my brother and the rules_. Two full pages, both sides. Right now."

"Dad," Dean protests, obviously not okay with the wording of the mandate. John holds up a hand to silence his eldest and jerks his head towards Sam to hurry him along.

"Now, Samuel."

Sam gets up slowly from his chair and brushes his hair away from his face.

"Yes, sir."

He sends another apologetic look in his brother's direction and lopes out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his room.

Listening to the sound of Sam's retreat, John sees that Dean's face has gone from placid to irritated and he's not being particularly shy at the moment about letting his father know it.

"I wish you didn't do that, Dad."

John reaches into the fridge and grabs two more beers. He brings them back to the table and indicates that Dean should retake his seat.

"You chose lines, kiddo."

His son sits reluctantly, but he grabs his beer and takes a sip.

"'Cause he didn't need more exercise," Dean says quietly, not looking at his father. "He hasn't been eating or sleeping enough as it is."

_Ah._

_That explains it._

John should have known that Dean wouldn't intentionally do something that mean to his little brother. Things might not be as bad as John suspects after all.

He reaches out and puts a comforting hand on Dean's arm to stop his son from nervously picking the paper label off of his beer bottle.

"Why don't you tell me why you're really pissed at him."

Dean doesn't move his arm to force his father's hand away, but he doesn't look John in the eye either as he spins the bottle between his hands. John doesn't rush his kid to speak, because sometimes Dean needs a moment to mull over the right words.

His boys are very different in that way. Sam is so hot tempered that he just spits out whatever comes to his head first, usually with little thought and regard to what he is saying and who he is saying it to. John has always been able to understand that, because it's a trait that he has passed to his youngest son himself.

But Dean is more careful with sharing his feelings. Of course he also has a streak of the Winchester temper, but generally speaking, when it's really important, John's eldest doesn't say anything without truly meaning it.

"I thought I could trust him," Dean whispers after a moment, and there is a heavy weight of sadness in his voice.

John doesn't answer right away, especially since he is well acquainted with the feeling. There are very few people in his life that he does trust, and it's because of the large number of times he has been let down.

Of course John has also let people down himself, not the least of which are his kids, but then again, his boys are not perfect either, and maybe it's time to remind his firstborn of that fact.

"He made a mistake, kiddo," John says gently, reaching up to pull Dean's chin over so that they are looking at each other. "He's owned up to it and is paying for it. You can't keep beating him up over it."

Dean is blinking hard and shifts his head away so that he doesn't have to be on the receiving end of his father's reprimand.

"Sammy's only seventeen, Dean," John reminds him, pointedly. "Sometimes seventeen year olds make terrible mistakes. But you also need to forgive them, because at the end of the day they're still just kids."

The look on Dean's face when his head shoots back up is flushed with realization, and John is glad that he doesn't have to emphasize his point any clearer.

"And then you need to forgive yourself," he continues, getting up and running an affectionate hand over his son's head. "Because none of us is perfect, and everyone deserves a second chance."

John doesn't say anything else.

He goes over to the corner of the room and grabs his bag, extracting his journal and the latest Guns and Ammo which he slides in front of his son. Dean can feign interest in the magazine while he's actually digesting his father's comments without it being uncomfortable between them.

Before John buries himself in his writing, he washes the dinner dishes and cuts a slice of the blueberry pie he picked up on his way to see his kids. Grabbing a fork, he slides it in front of his eldest and leaves the boy to his thoughts.

Forty-five minutes later Sam is back, hovering awkwardly in the threshold like a skittish colt as he darts glances between his father and brother sitting at the kitchen table. John motions him over and then indicates that he should hand the sheets of paper he is holding so gingerly to his brother. Sam places them next to Dean's magazine and none of them comment on the fact that the younger boy's eyes are red rimmed.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam whispers quietly, his throat clogged with tears.

Dean just turns away and squeezes his own eyes shut because _damn it_ , he is so fucking tired of seeing his baby brother emotionally wrecked. He's also not feeling so charitable towards himself right now after his father's very timely reminder of Dean's own trust issues.

"This doesn't happen again, Samuel," John says sternly. "Or the next time you answer to me and you won't sit for a week. Understood?"

Sam swallows hard and nods as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. You're in your room for the rest of the night. I'll see you before I leave in the morning."

"Yes, sir." 

Dad nods when Sam asks for permission to take a bottle of water with him and the boy quickly grabs one and darts back upstairs, leaving his father and brother silently watching his exit.

Dean waits a couple of hours until his father goes out to run an errand before he grabs his third beer. John has told him that he will be gone for a while, and his eldest son doesn't expect to see him back before he heads up to bed himself. It's not an unusual occurrence.

The papers that his brother has left near his chair glare at him accusingly. They are covered in row after row of the nice version of Sam's chicken scratch. The kind that his brother only bothers using when he's working on something important, like term papers for school. Otherwise Sam's handwriting is atrocious.

Dean is painfully aware of the fact that it's time to let go of the anger and resentment he has been carrying against his little brother. Although his reasons for being such a hardass haven't changed, he at least is man enough to acknowledge that he has been relatively just as cruel to Sam as their father was to Dean four years ago.

Or worse.

Dad might have handled Dean a little roughly, but at least he hadn't clocked him one like Dean did to Sam.

And Sam's crimes were so much smaller than Dean's had been, because you couldn't really equate an impromptu road trip of a boy as old as Dean was when he was out hustling in bars, with the irresponsible act of a careless son who let his thirteen year old little brother slip through his fingers when he wasn't looking.

Dean still doesn't know how his father ever forgave him for that, but he does know it's time to stop raking Sammy over the coals before it kills them both. When the morning comes, it's time to call a truce.

He's beyond tired. Too tired to even kick back with some crap cable for a while. So he tidies up the kitchen and living room, leaving the porch light on for his dad, and then trudges up the stairs to his room. Sam's light is off, unsurprisingly, and Dean has a passing flash of guilt for the petulant exile he has subjected his little brother to.

He'll make it up to the kid somehow.

Snapping on the light in his room, he pulls off his outer flannel and heads over to his dresser to grab sleeping clothes when something on his bed catches his eye. Perched on the pillow of the side he prefers to sleep on are two large yellow sheets of paper. Ripped from a legal tablet and longer than the white sheets of notepaper that Dean has angrily shoved into a drawer downstairs until his father consents to them being thrown out.

He picks them up, and when he reads the first line, his hand begins to tremble and he feels sick to his stomach.

 _Please forgive me. I miss my big brother_.

Written over and over and over again. Two full sheets. Both sides. In the same painstakingly careful script.

His legs give out and he slumps down to sit on the bed, shaking his head and rubbing his face.

"Damnit, Sammy."

He couldn't feel more like an asshole right now if he tried.

Because there isn't anything he can't forgive when it comes to his little brother. There is nothing Sammy could ever do that would be so terrible that Dean wouldn't shove it aside in a heartbeat and let it go.

Maybe that's a bad way to be. Maybe it's not good for either of them, but he doesn't give a damn.

There is simply no act awful enough that would ever stop Dean from being who he is.

And who he is?

He's Sam's big brother and protector. Even if he occasionally has to make hard choices to save the kid from himself, there will always be forgiveness on his part.

No matter how much it hurts sometimes.

Screw waiting until morning. This shit is ending _right the fuck now_.

He strides with purpose down the hallway and knocks gently on Sam's door, not really waiting for an invitation. Sam won't be asleep anyway. Dean's not stupid. He knows the kid has been caffeinating himself into functionality for days.

Sam rolls over when he hears his brother enter his room and blinks in surprise. Dean doesn't say anything as he approaches the bed, but the unspoken shorthand between brothers makes words unnecessary.

A slight twitch of Dean's head has Sam scooting over to make room on the bed and his brother toes off his boots and lays down next to him on top of the blanket. There is a peaceful silence between them that holds none of the tension of the silence of the previous week. This time there's a comforting easiness to it, and neither of them feel the need to do or say anything for a moment.

But then Dean breaks the ice, because it's been just so damn long since he actually talked with his little brother, and he has missed him more than either of them ever thought possible.

"I was thinking about doing tacos on Thursday night for your study group. What do you think, Sammy?"

A watery chuckle bursts out of Sam's throat and Dean can hear the dimpled smile in the darkness.

"Yeah," Sam whispers softly. "That's a great idea."

Dean nods to himself and smiles, and he can breathe again.

"Okay," he agrees. "Tacos it is."

Another moment passes and Dean shifts down further on the bed and crosses his legs, clearly settling in. Sam hesitates for just a few seconds, but then he curls to his side and leans his head until it's tucked against his brother's shoulder like he did when he was younger.

"Close your eyes, Sammy. You need sleep, kiddo," Dean soothes. "I'll be here in the morning."

Then he begins to quietly hum _Simple Man_ and Sam laughs silently in the dark, because Dean actually has a good singing voice. It's his smart assed nature that has him belting out tunes off key on purpose when he sings out loud.

Within just a few minutes, Sam starts to drift and his breathing evens out as he sleeps deeply for the first time in almost two weeks.

A few minutes after that, Dean does the same.

/

John Winchester lives in a world where he doesn't run away from the scary things that go bump in the night. He runs towards them. Because _they_ are scared of _him_.

That's not to say that he doesn't know fear.

He knows plenty of it.

John and fear have met.

But only when it comes to his kids. There is nothing in this life or the next that John Winchester genuinely fears except for the things that could hurt his sons.

So when his little boy runs off to Flagstaff it is, without a doubt, one of the most paralyzing moments of John's life.

It retrospect, the whole thing was probably his fault anyway. It's taken a few years to own that little fact, but John eventually comes to that conclusion.

He thinks that maybe thirteen was not yet old enough for Sammy to accept, without question, that it was too risky to be vulnerable at a sleep away sports camp without Dean and his Colt handy to keep the literal monsters away. So maybe John should have taken a few extra moments to get that point across in a conversation that didn't max out decibel levels.

And thirteen year old hormones, combined with Winchester temperament and stubbornness, was easily a catalyst for saying painfully shitty things to your old man because John remembers, with perfect clarity, doing the exact same thing to his stepfather.

It also wasn't a good idea to let his wounded feelings stop him from spanking the disrespect right out of his bratty kid the minute Sammy slammed that bathroom door, and then leaving poor Dean to bat cleanup for over almost two weeks until his little brother finally pulled a Houdini.

But John had fled like a coward out to the desert, where he could hunt and shoot and hurt things that preyed on people instead of dealing with his children. Leaving the responsibility of wrangling the volatile powder keg of puberty that was John's baby to his seventeen year old brother.

Oh, God. _Dean_.

The hunt for the chupacabra den took so much longer, and was so much harder and bloodier than he had anticipated. When it was finally over, he was busted up and straggling along in the desert, limping his way for miles back to the Impala and civilization. Not even sure what the day was, and unable to call his kids because there was no cell signal smack in the middle of Mexican Hell.

By the time he got his phone to work and started listening to all of those nightmarish messages, John had mentally gone to another place and was functioning and surviving on pure animal instinct alone.

He had never meant to be so rough with his firstborn that night.

John's never been shy about handing out some discipline to his sons, but that was the first and only time he had ever laid angry hands on one of them. It's no excuse to say that he didn't actually hit Dean that night, because he shook the boy so roughly and severely in his frantic grief that the poor kid actually puked from his actions.

John remembers the revulsion he felt of himself as his Dean crumpled to the floor, broken and pale and shivering. He touched him again, only once, to grab him up and carry him over to the bed so his child wasn't kneeling in a puddle of his own vomit. After that, John kept his distance, sure that his son wanted his father's hands nowhere near him after being treated so roughly.

For the next few days he kept Dean safe at the motel, not wanting his other boy to be anywhere near in case they found Sammy dead and torn apart. Something that John's firstborn would never recover from seeing. To be honest, it was also because John's hysteria was running high, and he couldn't take the risk of lashing out against his oldest again.

John's little boy was simply gone.

He wasn't sure if he should have been proud or terrified of the fact that he had trained his kid so well to cover his tracks that his own father couldn't find him.

Fortunately, Sammy was found safe and sound, because John was already gathering the items necessary to make a deal if his baby was dead. The agony of that was something that he knew he would never be able to live with. Hell itself had no torture equal to living in a world where one of his sons was gone.

His adrenaline had finally started recede in that motel room in Albuquerque, where Sammy was safe and sleeping soundly under his arm. It took a long time, too long, for John to remember that he had two sons that needed to be looked after that night.

He doesn't know how much time had passed before he realized that Dean had never come back inside. At first he hadn't thought anything of it, because both of the boys tried to make themselves scarce when the other was getting punished. He couldn't blame them. John wouldn't have wanted to be there either if he had a choice in the matter.

Sammy was snuggled up in bed and out for the count when John had ventured outside to check on his oldest son's whereabouts. It never occurred to him that Dean might have taken off, because that wasn't something that the boy would ever do. He would never even think of scaring the shit out of his father like that, especially right then after everything they had just been through.

Sure enough, his son was sitting hunched over on the bench of a picnic table on the tiny spot of grass next to their end unit. It was the first time that John had really looked at Dean in days and his stomach twisted painfully to realize that his kid looked worse than some POWs that John had seen in his war days.

He strode over, desperation making his movements look more threatening than he would have wanted them to, and Dean had shrunk back from him in fear, his dull green eyes suddenly wild and blinking rapidly. Before John knew what was happening, Dean was laying himself over the table. Arms pretzeled around his head and face pressed so hard into the wood that John was afraid he would get splinters in his cheek.

And it only got worse when the worried father realized that his frantic and hysterical little boy was muttering gut wrenching, quiet, broken apologies and waiting to get belted by him.

He had gathered Dean in his arms and walked him back into the motel room where Sammy slept on unawares. Dean was shivering and John wrapped a blanket around him and led him to the table where he manually fed his son sips of water and small pieces of a protein bar. Dean mechanically chewed and swallowed, but only because he was programmed to respond to his father's orders.

There was clear trauma in Dean's eyes and an obvious detachment from reality as he stared blindly behind his father's shoulder and trembled.

Truthfully, John had started to fear that his son might need real medical intervention if he couldn't get the kid to calm down. The shivering wasn't getting any better, no matter how long he rubbed Dean's arms and legs to get circulation going again.

In the end, John had bundled himself and both of his sons into the same cramped bed, not wanting to be separated from either of them at the moment, and they slept huddled together that night with him in the middle and a child under each arm.

As they headed north, John caught wind of a possible wendigo hunt, and he was so desperate to get Dean to rejoin the conscious world he agreed to look into it, because his firstborn loved a good hunt. Even though all John wanted to do was sleep for a week.

He had been hopeful that planning for one would snap Dean out of his funk, but the whole thing was a complete bust and it wasn't until they got to Rufus' cabin that his oldest began to show signs of coming back to them.

Once Dean started to interact willingly again, feeding himself and showering and moving around, John had finally let himself go.

But he hadn't been so far gone that he wasn't aware of the silent tension between his kids during those few days in Montana. Days that reminded him way too much of their uncomfortable dinner this evening.

A deep seated fear that was only confirmed even more strongly as John sat in the driver's seat of Sam's Camaro in the salvage yard and looked at the odometer.

One of the perks of having helped build his son's car was knowing exactly what the mileage was when they gave Sammy the keys. A mileage that was now much greater than any distance that Sam would have been able to cover under his current driving restrictions.

"Where the hell did you go, kiddo?"

John rubbed his face with both hands until the skin started to feel raw as the realization dawned on him that he might not have as much time as he hoped for.

There couldn't be any secrets kept from John about his younger son's activities anymore. Sooner than he was ready to handle, he was going to have to share with Dean the frightening truth about his little brother.

/

Dean is cutting up avocados and smiling, his back turned to the rowdy bunch of kids crammed around the kitchen table who are babbling loudly over the crunch of tortilla chips. He throws a look over his shoulder to catch a quick glimpse of his brother.

In the center of the long bench Sam is grinning with all the dimples as he draws a silly picture illustrating the relationship between dyne centimeters and ergs, whatever the hell they are.

 _Adorable little nerd_ , his big brother thinks fondly as he goes back to mixing up the bowl of guacamole.

The food is just about ready when their doorbell rings. The brothers shoot each other questioning looks because all of the kids are already accounted for. Dean motions for Sam to stay in the kitchen as he moves with cat-like grace towards the front door, mindful of his Colt tucked in the back of his jeans.

Looking through the peephole, Dean grins and shakes his head, unlocking the three deadbolts on the door and opening it to the cute little brunette shivering on the front porch and holding a pan in her arms.

"I hope it's okay if I join you guys?" Alex stammers as she smiles. "I brought brownies."

Dean laughs and moves to the side, relieving her of her dessert and casually noting the lack of trouble she has crossing the Devil's Trap under the welcome mat.

"If you brought chocolate, you can definitely stay," he teases. "Sammy! Get your ass in here."

Sam comes loping in from the kitchen and then stops short when he sees who is with his brother. He blushes for a second before recovering. It shouldn't be so awkward between them. He and Alex have spent a lot of time together working on the play and then studying together at school, but she still makes him a little nervous.

Dean's chuckling as he takes Alex's coat from her and lays it over the stuffed chair with the others.

"Dinner in ten," he says, before he returns to the kitchen, leaving them alone.

Sam hasn't said anything yet, and Alex starts to get a little uncomfortable as he stares at her.

"Do you mind that I came over?" she asks hesitantly. "You did invite me a couple of times."

Sam blinks and recovers, realizing that he is being rude.

"What? No! Of course not," he stutters. "I'm glad you're here. Just surprised, is all."

"Okay, good," she laughs, relieved, as they continue to stand by the now closed door. "So...Sammy?"

"Yeah," Sam says as he continues to blush. "My brother's an idiot. Still thinks I'm four. Come on. Everyone is in the kitchen."

Alex stops him with a hand to his arm. "Can I wash my hands first?"

"Sure," Sam replies, remembering his manners. "The bathroom's upstairs. I'll show you."

They head up, moving slowly and throwing each other sweet little grins as they walk. When they get to the second floor Sam points out the middle door.

"Bathroom's just in there."

Alex hesitates a second and looks at the other doors, both of which are open, revealing two bedrooms.

"So which one is your room," she asks, smiling mischievously.

Sam blinks hard, a little nervous as he feels his face flush again. He rubs a hand on the back of his neck as he nudges his head to the right of the bathroom.

"Um. That one."

"So, can I see it?" Alex doesn't wait for an answer. She grabs him by the hand and tugs him towards his room, and Sam is pleasantly surprised so he goes with it.

As usual, his bedroom is tidy and orderly. Years of living with his dad has drilled neatness into him. He's not the kind of kid that has anything embarrassing laying about. There's no dirty clothes kicked into a corner anywhere, or porn mags shoved under the bed.

"Wow," Alex laughs, looking around. "Are you guys Scandinavian, or something?"

"What?" Sam asks, as his forehead crinkles in confusion. "No. Why?"

Alex smiles and turns around, pointing out the lack of adornments. "You have a very minimalist decorating style."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess." Sam shrugs and sits down on his bed. "Not really into collecting a lot of stuff."

She continues to walk around, stopping in front of his bulging bookshelves. "You've got some great books, though."

He lets her peruse them for a moment before standing back up, knowing that his brother will come investigating if they stay up here much longer. But Alex isn't done snooping. She walks around until she sees the photo of Mom and Dad on his nightstand and picks it up.

"Are these your parents?"

Sam just nods, getting uncomfortable, because he doesn't like to talk about them.

"Your mom is pretty."

And he nods again, because, _yeah, she was_.

"You look a lot like your dad," she observes, glancing back between Sam and the photo. "Is he military?" she asks, pointing out John's fatigues.

"He was," Sam answers, gently taking the photo from her and replacing it, not wanting to continue this line of conversation. "Marines. But he retired."

She gets the hint, smiles again, and then glances at his bed.

"That explains the neat bed. I never make mine. Too lazy. But I bet you could bounce a quarter off of yours," she teases.

Then Sam laughs, but doesn't mention how many times he's actually had to do that to please his father.

They stare at each other for a minute. Both of them shy and a little awkward. Sam could get lost in those beautiful blue eyes peering up at him and, before he knows it, he's reaching down to take her hand in his.

Alex looks down at their intertwined fingers and uses her thumb to gently rub a small scar on his index finger. Sam cut himself once when he was ten while Dad was teaching him how to throw his bowie knife, but that's not a story he's particularly willing to share.

Instead, he hesitates for half a heartbeat before he leans down and kisses her softly on the mouth. She smells like French Vanilla and her kiss tastes like cinnamon gum, and when he goes in for a second one she inhales deeply and allows it.

He uses his other hand to take a hold of her free one and they just stand there for a moment, before a loud voice bellows from down below.

"Sammy! Dinner!"

Sam smiles and shakes his head before he leads Alex back to the bathroom. He waits outside while she washes up and then he takes her hand again and they descend the stairs together.

Dinner is a lively event as usual.

A place at the already crowded table was made for Alex before they even made it to the kitchen. Bowls of food are passed around while Dean is frying more tortillas on the stove. Everyone is laughing and joking and eating with their mouths too full, but no one cares.

Sam looks around the table at his friends. Sees his brother catch his eye from across the room and smiles knowingly, because Dean isn't a fool. The warmth of Alex's hand in his under the table makes him sigh happily over the feeling.

Right now, life is pretty good.

/


End file.
